'im, think ye?" asked
the mother.

"Na, na," answered Donal; "he's been like that sin' ever I kenned
him. I never h'ard word frae the moo' o' 'im."

"He'll be ane o' the deif an' dumb," said Janet.

"He's no deif, mither; that I ken weel; but dumb he maun be, I'm
thinkin'.--Cratur," he continued, stooping over the boy, "gien ye
hear what I'm sayin', tak haud o' my nose."

Thereupon, with a laugh like that of an amused infant, Gibbie raised
his hand, and with thumb and forefinger gently pinched Donal's large
nose, at which they all burst out laughing with joy. It was as if
they had found an angel's baby in the bushes, and been afraid he was
an idiot, but were now relieved. Away went Janet, and brought him
his gruel. It was with no small difficulty and not without a moan
or two, that Gibbie sat up in the bed to take it. There was
something very pathetic in the full content with which he sat there
in his nakedness, and looked smiling at them all. It was more than
content--it was bliss that shone in his countenance. He took the
wooden bowl, and began to eat; and the look he cast on Janet seemed
to say he had never tasted such delicious food. Indeed he never
had; and the poor cottage, where once more he was a stranger and
taken in, appeared to Gibbie a place of wondrous wealth. And so it
was--not only in the best treasures, those of loving kindness, but
in all homely plenty as well for the needs of the body--a very
temple of the God of simplicity and comfort--rich in warmth and rest
and food.

Janet went to her kist, whence she brought out a garment of her own,
and aired it at the fire. It had no lace at the neck or cuffs, no
embroidery down the front; but when she put it on him, amid the
tearful laughter of the women, and had tied it round his waist with
a piece of list that had served as a garter, it made a dress most
becoming in their eyes, and gave Gibbie indescribable pleasure from
its whiteness, and its coolness to his inflamed skin.

They had just finished clothing him thus, when the goodman came
home, and the mother's narration had to be given afresh, with
Donal's notes explanatory and completive. As the latter reported
the doings of the imagined brownie, and the commotion they had
caused at the Mains and along Daurside, Gibbie's countenance flashed
with pleasure and fun; and at last he broke into such a peal of
laughter as had never, for pure merriment, been heard before so high
on Glashgar. Al