wake in God's thought of his world; and the snow,
like all other deaths, had to melt and run, leaving room for hope;
then the summer woke smiling, as if she knew she had been asleep;
and the two youths and the two maidens met yet again on Lorrie bank,
with the brown water falling over the stones, the gold nuggets of
the broom hanging over the water, and the young larch-wood scenting
the air all up the brae side between them and the house, which the
tall hedge hid from their view. The four were a year older, a year
nearer trouble, and a year nearer getting out of it. Ginevra was
more of a woman, Donal more of a poet, Nicie as nice and much the
same, and Gibbie, if possible, more a foundling of the universe than
ever. He was growing steadily, and showed such freedom and ease,
and his motions were all so rapid and direct, that it was plain at a
glance the beauty of his countenance was in no manner or measure
associated with weakness. The mountain was a grand nursery for him,
and the result, both physical and spiritual, corresponded. Janet,
who, better than anyone else, knew what was in the mind of the boy,
revered him as much as he revered her; the first impression he made
upon her had never worn off--had only changed its colour a little.
More even than a knowledge of the truth, is a readiness to receive
it; and Janet saw from the first that Gibbie's ignorance at its
worst was but room vacant for the truth: when it came it found bolt
nor bar on door or window, but had immediate entrance. The secret
of this power of reception was, that to see a truth and to do it was
one and the same thing with Gibbie. To know and not do would have
seemed to him an impossibility, as it is in vital idea a
monstrosity.

This unity of vision and action was the main cause also of a certain
daring simplicity in the exercise of the imagination, which so far
from misleading him reacted only in obedience--which is the truth of
the will--the truth, therefore, of the whole being. He did not do
the less well for his sheep, that he fancied they knew when Jesus
Christ was on the mountain, and always at such times both fed better
and were more frolicsome. He thought Oscar knew it also, and
interpreted a certain look of the dog by the supposition that he had
caught a sign of the bodily presence of his Maker. The direction in
which his imagination ran forward, was always that in which his
reason pointed; and so long as Gibbie's fancies were bud