ngency of her temper was but as the salt and vinegar which brought
out the true flavour of the other numberless pleasures around her. Were
her excursions far afield, perched aloft on Dowie's shoulder, and
holding on by the top of his head, or clinging to his back with her
arms round his neck, at all the less delightful that auntie was
scolding at home? They would have been less delightful if she had
thought of the future; but she thought only of the present joy; or
rather she took it as it came, and let it play upon her, without
thinking about it at all. And if she was late for one of her meals, for
Annie had no very correct sense of the lapse of time, and auntie had
declared she should go fasting, it was yet not without her connivance
that rosy-faced Betty got the child the best of everything that was at
hand, and put cream in her milk, and butter on her oat cake, Annie
managing to consume everything with satisfaction, notwithstanding the
hurdy-gurdy accompaniment of her aunt's audible reflections. And
Brownie was always friendly; ever ready on any serious emergency, when
auntie's temper was still less placid than usual, to yield a corner of
her manger for a refuge to the child. And the cocks and hens, even the
peacock and the turkey-cock, knew her perfectly, and would come when
she called them, if not altogether out of affection for her, at least
out of hope in her bounty; and she had not yet arrived at the painful
wisdom of beginning to question motives--a wisdom which misleads more
than it guides. She loved _them_, and that was enough for her. And she
would ride the horses to water, sitting sideways on their broad backs
like a barefooted lady; for Dowie had such respect for his little
mistress, as he called her, that he would never let her get astride
"like a laddie," however much she wanted to do so. And when the morning
was wet, and the sound of the flails came to her from the barn, she
would watch for the moment when her aunt's back would be turned, and
then scurry across the yard, like a mouse to its hole; for auntie's
first impulse was always to oppose whatever Annie desired. Once in the
barn, she would bury herself like a mole in the straw, and listen to
the unfailing metronome of the flails, till she would fall so fast
asleep as to awake only when her uncomfortable aunt, believing that at
last the awful something or other _had_ happened to the _royt_ lassie,
dragged her out ignominiously by the heels. But the _