helped to
shake her out of the heaviness and dulness that had fallen upon her.
But she "never heeded." She saw neither the hand which was held out to
her in friendliness nor the face that turned away in indifference or
anger.

And perhaps, on the whole, it was as well that she heeded nothing. For
as weeks and months passed on, and other folk came or went, and new
events--which would have hardly deserved the name elsewhere--happened to
give subject-matter for discussion at proper times and places, Allison
became just "the minister's lass," tolerated, if not altogether
approved, among the censors of morals and manners in the town, and she
still went her way, for the most part, unconscious of them all.

CHAPTER FIVE.

"He wales a portion with judicious care, And `Let us worship God,' he
says with solemn air."

In the minister's home on Sabbath morning, the custom was for the two
eldest lads to take turns with the "lass" in keeping the house, while
all the rest, except Marjorie and the two youngest, went to the kirk.
It cannot be said that this was felt to be a hardship by the lads--
rather the contrary, I am afraid--when the weather and the season of the
year permitted them to spend the time in the garden, or when a new book,
not in the "Index expurgatorious" of Sabbath reading was at hand, or
even a beloved old one.

Of course there were Sabbath-day tasks to learn. But the big boys were
by this time as familiar with the catechism as with the multiplication
table, and a psalm, or a paraphrase, or a chapter in the New Testament,
hardly was accounted by them as a task. Frequent reading, and constant
hearing at family worship, and at the school, had made the words of many
parts of the book so familiar to them that only a glance was needed to
make them sure of their ground. It needed, perhaps, a second glance if
another repetition was suddenly required. It was "licht come, licht go"
with them--easily learned, easily forgotten--in the way of tasks. But
in another way it was not so. The Word thus learned "in the house and
by the way," and so associated with all else which their young, glad
lives held, could never be quite forgotten; nay more, could never--in
theory and opinion at least--cease to be authoritative as the law by
which, wherever they might wander, their steps were to be guided. But
the chief thing to them at present was, that even with "tasks" to learn,
there was still time to enjoy their books.