day, actively engaged in miscellaneous
self-imposed duties, and could also eat like a man and sleep like a
dormouse--she was, nevertheless, withered, and wrinkled, and grey, and
small. Her exact age nobody knew--and, for the matter of that, nobody
seemed to care.

Extreme amiability and self-obliteration were the chief characteristics
of Old Peg. She was silent by nature, and deaf as a post--whether by
art or nature we know not; probably both. Well, no--on second thoughts,
not quite as deaf as a post, for by means of severe shouting she could
be made to hear.

Smiles and nods, however, were her chief means of communication with the
outer world. When these failed, a yell might be tried with advantage.

No one of the McKay household ever thought of giving Old Peg anything in
the shape of work to do, for the very good reason that, being an
extremely willing horse, she was always working; and she possessed a
peculiar faculty of observation, which enabled her to perceive, long
before any one else, what ought to be done, and the right time to do it,
so that, when any one bounced round with the sudden intention of telling
her to do anything, Old Peg was found to have done it already, or to be
in the act of doing it. It is almost superfluous to say that she
patched and mended the household garments, washed the most of things
washable, sewed the sewable, darned the sock, and, generally, did-up the
whole McKay family. When not engaged in definite or specific work, she
had a chronic sock-knitting which helped to fill up and round off the
corners of her leisure hours.

Old Peg had been the nurse, consecutively, of Fergus, Elspie, and Duncan
junior. She was now equivalent to their second mother, having nursed
their first mother to the end with faithful untiring affection, and
received from the dying woman a solemn commission never to forsake
Duncan senior or his progeny.

No sentiment of a religious nature ever escaped Old Peg, but it was
observed that she read her Bible regularly, and was occasionally found
asleep on her knees--greatly to the amusement of that irritable old
rascal, Duncan senior, and to the gratification of Elspie, who came to
the conclusion that the old woman must have learned well off by heart
such words as--"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do; do it with thy
might." "Do good to all men as thy hand findeth opportunity." "Be
clothed with humility." "Trust in the Lord at all times." Probably
Elspie