of certain
garments, which, like David with Saul's not similarly faulty armour,
he had not hitherto proved, "Weel, mem," he said, "ye haena
forgotten Hornie, I houp."

The other girls must be pardoned for tittering, offensive as is the
habit so common to their class, for the only being they knew by that
name was one to whom the merest reference sets pit and gallery in a
roar. Miss Kimble was shocked--disgusted, she said afterwards;
and until she learned that the clown was there uninvited, cherished
a grudge against Mrs. Sclater.

Ginevra smiled him a satisfactory negative.

"I never read the ballant aboot the worm lingelt roun' the tree,"
said Donal, making rather a long link in the chain of association,
"ohn thoucht upo' that day, mem, whan first ye cam doon the brae wi'
my sister Nicie, an' I cam ower the burn till ye, an' ye garred me
lauch aboot weetin' o' my feet! Eh, mem! wi' you afore me there, I
see the blew lift again, an' the gerse jist lowin' (flaming) green,
an' the nowt at their busiest, the win' asleep, an' the burn sayin',
'Ye need nane o' ye speyk: I'm here, an' it's my business.' Eh,
mem! whan I think upo' 't a', it seems to me 'at the human hert
closed i' the mids o' sic a coffer o' cunnin' workmanship, maun be a
terrible precious-like thing."

Gibbie, behind Donal's chair, seemed pulsing light at every pore,
but the rest of the company, understanding his words perfectly, yet
not comprehending a single sentence he uttered, began to wonder
whether he was out of his mind, and were perplexed to see Ginevra
listening to him with such respect. They saw a human offence where
she knew a poet. A word is a word, but its interpretations are
many, and the understanding of a man's words depends both on what
the hearer is, and on what is his idea of the speaker. As to the
pure all things are pure, because only purity can enter, so to the
vulgar all things are vulgar, because only the vulgar can enter.
Wherein then is the commonplace man to be blamed, for as he is, so
must he think? In this, that he consents to be commonplace, willing
to live after his own idea of himself, and not after God's idea of
him--the real idea, which, every now and then stirring in him, makes
him uneasy with silent rebuke.

Ginevra said little in reply. She had not much to say. In her
world the streams were still, not vocal. But Donal meant to hold a
little communication with her which none of them, except indeed
Gibbi