a good deal--far more at least than her husband was able to
believe.

Mr Macmichael was very kind and attentive to Mrs Spelman; though, as the
carpenter himself said, he hadn't seen the colour of _his_ money for
years. But the Doctor knew that Spelman was a hard-working man, and
would rather have given him a little money than have pressed him for a
penny. He told him one day, when he was lamenting that he couldn't pay
him even _yet_, that he was only too glad to do anything in the least
little bit like what the Saviour did when he was in the world--"a
carpenter like you, Spelman--think of that," added the Doctor.

So Spelman was as full of gratitude as he could hold. Except Hector
Macallaster, the Doctor was almost his only creditor. Medicine and shoes
were his chief trials: he kept on paying for the latter, but the debt
for the former went on accumulating.

Hence it came that when Willie began to haunt his shop, though he had
hardly a single smile to give the little fellow, he was more than
pleased;--gave him odds and ends of wood; lent him whatever tools he
wanted except the adze--that he would not let him touch; would drop him
a hint now and then as to the use of them; would any moment stop his own
work to attend to a difficulty the boy found himself in; and, in short,
paid him far more attention than he would have thought required of him
if Willie had been his apprentice.

From the moment he entered the workshop, Willie could hardly keep his
hands off the tools. The very shape of them, as they lay on the bench or
hung on the wall, seemed to say over and over, "Come, use me; come, use
me." They looked waiting, and hungry for work. They wanted stuff to
shape and fashion into things, and join into other things. They wanted
to make bigger tools than themselves--for ploughing the earth, for
carrying the harvest, or for some one or other of ten thousand services
to be rendered in the house or in the fields. It was impossible for
Willie to see the hollow lip of the gouge, the straight lip of the
chisel, or the same lip fitted with another lip, and so made into the
mouth of the plane, the worm-like auger, or the critical spokeshave,
the hammer which will have it so, or the humble bradawl which is its
pioneer--he could see none of them without longing to send his life into
theirs, and set them doing in the world--for was not this what their
dumb looks seemed ever to implore? At that time young Spelman was busy
making a