rse of families with their servants and dependants, of which I
have given some amusing examples, is found in the modern manufactory
system. There the service is a mere question of personal interest. One
of our first practical engineers, and one of the first engine-makers in
England, stated that he employed and paid handsomely on an average 1200
workmen; but that they held so little feeling for him as their master,
that not above half-a-dozen of the number would notice him when passing
him, either in the works or out of work hours. Contrast this advanced
state of dependants' indifference with the familiarity of domestic
intercourse we have been describing!

It has been suggested by my esteemed friend, Dr. W. Lindsay Alexander,
that Scottish anecdotes deal too exclusively with the shrewd, quaint,
and pawky _humour_ of our countrymen, and have not sufficiently
illustrated the deep pathos and strong loving-kindness of the "kindly
Scot,"--qualities which, however little appreciated across the Border,
abound in Scottish poetry and Scottish life. For example, to take the
case before us of these old retainers, although snappy and disagreeable
to the last degree in their replies, and often most provoking in their
ways, they were yet deeply and sincerely attached to the family where
they had so long been domesticated; and the servant who would reply to
her mistress's order to mend the fire by the short answer, "The fire's
weel eneuch," would at the same time evince much interest in all that
might assist her in sustaining the credit of her domestic economy; as,
for example, whispering in her ear at dinner, "Press the jeelies; they
winna keep;" and had the hour of real trial and of difficulty come to
the family, would have gone to the death for them, and shared their
greatest privations. Dr. Alexander gives a very interesting example of
kindness and affectionate attachment in an old Scottish domestic of his
own family, whose quaint and odd familiarity was charming. I give it in
his own words:--"When I was a child there was an old servant at
Pinkieburn, where my early days were spent, who had been all her life, I
may say, in the house--for she came to it a child, and lived, without
ever leaving it, till she died in it, seventy-five years of age. Her
feeling to her old master, who was just two years younger than herself,
was a curious compound of the deference of a servant and the familiarity
and affection of a sister. She had known h