ken ye aboot the lasses, Thamas? Haud ye to the men. The lasses
are nae waur nor in ither pairts. I wat I can come and gang whan and
whaur I like. Never a body says a word to me."

This was true but hardly significant; seeing Jean had one shoulder and
one eye twice the size of the others, to say nothing of various
obliquities and their compensations. But, rude as Thomas was, he was
gentleman enough to confine his reply to a snort and a silence. For had
he not chosen his housekeeper upon the strength of those personal
recommendations of the defensive importance of which she was herself
unaware?

Except his own daughters there was no one who mourned so deeply for the
loss of Mr Cowie as Annie Anderson. She had left his church and gone to
the missionars, and there found more spiritual nourishment than Mr
Cowie's sermons could supply, but she could not forget his kisses, or
his gentle words, or his shilling, for by their means, although she did
not know it, Mr Cowie's self had given her a more confiding notion of
God, a better feeling of his tenderness, than she could have had from
all Mr Turnbull's sermons together. What equal gift could a man give?
Was it not worth bookfuls of sound doctrine? Yet the good man, not
knowing this, had often looked back to that interview, and reproached
himself bitterly that he, so long a clergyman of that parish, had no
help to give the only child who ever came to him to ask such help. So,
when he lay on his death-bed, he sent for Annie, the only soul, out of
all his pariah, over which he felt that he had any pastoral cure.

When, with pale, tearful face, she entered his chamber, she found him
supported with pillows in his bed. He stretched out his arms to her
feebly, but held her close to his bosom, and wept.

"I'm going to die, Annie," he said.

"And go to heaven, sir, to the face o' God," said Annie, not sobbing,
but with the tears streaming silently down her face.

"I don't know, Annie. I've been of no use; and I'm afraid God does not
care much for me."

"If God loves you half as much as I do, sir, ye'll be well off in
heaven. And I'm thinkin' he maun love ye mair nor me. For, ye see, sir,
God's love itsel'."

"I don't know, Annie. But if ever I win there, which'll be more than I
deserve, I'll tell him about you, and ask him to give you the help that
I couldn't give you."

Love and Death make us all children.--Can Old Age be an evil thing,
which does the same?

The old clerg