nd constant homely familiarity with the
vast simplicities of nature, assist much in the development of the
deeper and more wonderful faculties of perception. The perceptions
themselves may take this or that shape according to the
education--may even embody themselves fantastically, yet be no less
perceptions. Now the very moment before Gibbie entered, she had
been reading the words of the Lord: "Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me"; and with her heart full of them, she lifted her eyes and saw
Gibbie. For one moment, with the quick flashing response of the
childlike imagination of the Celt, she fancied she saw the Lord
himself. Another woman might have made a more serious mistake, and
seen there only a child. Often had Janet pondered, as she sat alone
on the great mountain, while Robert was with the sheep, or she lay
awake by his side at night, with the wind howling about the cottage,
whether the Lord might not sometimes take a lonely walk to look
after such solitary sheep of his flock as they, and let them know he
had not lost sight of them, for all the ups and downs of the hills.
There stood the child, and whether he was the Lord or not, he was
evidently hungry. Ah! who could tell but the Lord was actually
hungry in every one of his hungering little ones!

In the mean time--only it was but thought-time, not
clock-time--Gibbie stood motionless in the middle of the floor,
smiling his innocent smile, asking for nothing, hinting at nothing,
but resting his wild calm eyes, with a sense of safety and
mother-presence, upon the grey thoughtful face of the gazing woman.
Her awe deepened; it seemed to descend upon her and fold her in as
with a mantle. Involuntarily she bowed her head, and stepping to
him took him by the hand, and led him to the stool she had left.
There she made him sit, while she brought forward her table, white
with scrubbing, took from a hole in the wall and set upon it a
platter of oatcakes, carried a wooden bowl to her dairy in the rock
through a whitewashed door, and bringing it back filled, half with
cream half with milk, set that also on the table. Then she placed a
chair before it, and said--

"Sit ye doon, an' tak. Gin ye war the Lord himsel', my bonny man,
an' ye may be for oucht I ken, for ye luik puir an' despised eneuch,
I cud gie nae better, for it's a' I hae to offer ye--'cep it micht
be an egg," she added, correcting herse