oy to school, that he might learn the things
he was so much more than ordinarily capable of learning. Janet would
give no immediate opinion. She must think, she said; and she took
three days to turn the matter over in her mind. Her questioning
cogitation was to this effect: "What need has a man to know anything
but what the New Testament teaches him? Life was little to me
before I began to understand its good news; now it is more than
good--it is grand. But then, man is to live by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God; and everything came out of his
mouth, when he said, Let there be this, and Let there be that.
Whatever is true is his making, and the more we know of it the
better. Besides, how much less of the New Testament would I
understand now, if it were not for things I had gone through and
learned before!"

"Ay, Robert," she answered, without preface, the third day, "I'm
thinkin' there's a heap o' things, gien I hed them, 'at wad help me
to ken what the Maister spak till. It wad be a sin no to lat the
laddie learn. But wha'll tak the trible needfu' to the learnin' o'
a puir dummie?"

"Lat him gang doon to the Mains, an' herd wi' Donal," answered
Robert. "He kens a hantle mair nor you or me or Gibbie aither; an'
whan he's learnt a' 'at Donal can shaw him it'll be time to think
what neist."

"Weel," answered Janet, "nane can say but that's sense, Robert; an'
though I'm laith, for your sake mair nor my ain, to lat the laddie
gang, let him gang to Donal. I houp, atween the twa, they winna lat
the nowt amo' the corn."

"The corn's 'maist cuttit noo," replied Robert; "an' for the maitter
o' that, twa guid consciences winna blaw ane anither oot.--But he
needna gang ilka day. He can gie ae day to the learnin', an' the
neist to thinkin' aboot it amo' the sheep. An' ony day 'at ye want
to keep him, ye can keep him; for it winna be as gien he gaed to the
schuil."

Gibbie was delighted with the proposal.

"Only," said Robert, in final warning, "dinna ye lat them tak ye,
Gibbie, an' score yer back again, my cratur; an' dinna ye answer
naebody, whan they speir what ye're ca'd, onything mair nor jist
Gibbie."

The boy laughed and nodded, and, as Janet said, the bairn's nick was
guid 's the best man's word.

Now came a happy time for the two boys. Donal began at once to
teach Gibbie Euclid and arithmetic. When they had had enough of
that for a day, he read Scotish history to him; and when