It's easy kent whaur he got his knowledge of women," Birse explained,
"it's a' in the original Hebrew. You can howk ony mortal thing out o'
the original Hebrew, the which all ministers hae at their finger ends.
What else makes them ken to jump a verse now and then when giving out
a psalm?"

"It wasna women like me he denounced," Elspeth insisted, "but young
lassies that leads men astray wi' their abominable wheedling ways."

"Tod," said her husband, "if they try their hands on Mr. Dishart they'll
meet their match."

"They will," chuckled the post. "The Hebrew's a grand thing, though
teuch, I'm telled, michty teuch."

"His sublimest burst," Waster Lunny came back to tell me, "was about the
beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no worth
a snuff. What a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! I dinna
deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but Mr. Dishart wouldna gi'e a
blade o' grass for't. Ay, and I used to think that in their foolishness
about women there was dagont little differ atween the unlearned and the
highly edicated."

THE MUTUAL DISCOVERY

From 'The Little Minister': by permission of the American Publishers'
Corporation

A young man thinks that he alone of mortals is impervious to love, and
so the discovery that he is in it suddenly alters his views of his own
mechanism. It is thus not unlike a rap on the funny-bone. Did Gavin make
this discovery when the Egyptian left him? Apparently he only came to
the brink of it and stood blind. He had driven her from him for ever,
and his sense of loss was so acute that his soul cried out for the cure
rather than for the name of the malady.

In time he would have realized what had happened, but time was denied
him, for just as he was starting for the mudhouse Babbie saved his
dignity by returning to him.... She looked up surprised, or seemingly
surprised, to find him still there.

"I thought you had gone away long ago," she said stiffly.

"Otherwise," asked Gavin the dejected, "you would not have came back to
the well?"

"Certainly not."

"I am very sorry. Had you waited another moment I should have been
gone."

This was said in apology, but the willful Egyptian chose to change its
meaning.

"You have no right to blame me for disturbing you," she declared with
warmth.

"I did not. I only--"

"You could have been a mile away by this time. Nanny wanted more water."

Babbie scrutinized the minister sharply as she made