st of us are so fond and proud. And that
self no man can find for himself; seeing of himself he does not even
know what to search for. "But as many as received him, to them gave
he power to become the sons of God."

Then there was the delight, fresh every week, of the Saturday
gathering of the brothers and sisters, whom Gibbie could hardly have
loved more, had they been of his own immediate kin. Dearest of all
was Donal, whose greeting--"Weel, cratur," was heavenly in Gibbie's
ears. Donal would have had him go down and spend a day, every now
and then, with him and the nowt, as in old times--so soon the times
grow old to the young!--but Janet would not hear of it, until the
foolish tale of the brownie should have quite blown over.

"Eh, but I wuss," she added, as she said so, "I cud win at something
aboot his fowk, or aiven whaur he cam frae, or what they ca'd him!
Never ae word has the cratur spoken!"

"Ye sud learn him to read, mither," said Donal.

"Hoo wad I du that, laddie? I wad hae to learn him to speyk first,"
returned Janet.

"Lat him come doon to me, an' I'll try my han'," said Donal.

Janet, notwithstanding, persisted in her refusal--for the present.
By Donal's words set thinking of the matter, however, she now
pondered the question day after day, how she might teach him to
read; and at last the idea dawned upon her to substitute writing for
speech.

She took the Shorter Catechism, which, in those days, had always an
alphabet as janitor to the gates of its mysteries--who, with the
catechism as a consequence even dimly foreboded, would even have
learned it?--and showed Gibbie the letters, naming each several
times, and going over them repeatedly. Then she gave him Donal's
school-slate, with a sklet-pike, and said, "Noo, mak a muckle A,
cratur."

Gibbie did so, and well too: she found that already he knew about
half the letters.

"He 's no fule!" she said to herself in triumph.

The other half soon followed; and she then began to show him
words--not in the Catechism, but in the New Testament. Having told
him what any word was, and led him to consider the letters composing
it, she would desire him to make it on the slate, and he would do so
with tolerable accuracy: she was not very severe about the spelling,
if only it was plain he knew the word. Ere long he began to devise
short ways of making the letters, and soon wrote with remarkable
facility in a character modified from the printed l