But a greater difficulty had to be encountered. It was not long before she had exhausted her book, from which she had chosen the right poems by insight, wonderfully avoiding by instinct the unsuitable, without knowing why, and repelled by the mere tone. She thought day and night where additional _pabulum_ might be procured, and at last came to the resolution of applying to Mr Cowie the clergyman. Without consulting any one, she knocked on an afternoon at Mr Cowie's door. "Cud I see the minister?" she said to the maid. "I dinna ken. What do you want?" was the maid's reply. But Annie was Scotch too, and perhaps perceived that she would have but a small chance of being admitted into the minister's presence if she communicated the object of her request to the servant. So she only replied, "I want to see himsel', gin ye please." "Weel, come in, and I'll tell him. What's yer name?" "Annie Anderson" "Whaur do ye bide?" "At Mr Bruce's, i' the Wast Wynd." The maid went, and presently returning with the message that she was to "gang up the stair," conducted her to the study where the minister sat--a room, to Annie's amazement, filled with books from the top to the bottom of every wall. Mr Cowie held out his hand to her, and said, "Well, my little maiden, what do you want?" "Please, sir, wad ye len' me a sang-buik?" "A psalm-book?" said the minister, hesitatingly, supposing he had not heard aright, and yet doubting if this could be the correction of his auricular blunder. "Na, sir; I hae a psalm-buik at hame. It's a sang-buik that I want the len' o'." Now the minister was one of an old school--a very worthy kind-hearted man, with nothing of what has been called _religious experience_. But he knew what some of his Lord's words meant, and amongst them certain words about little children. He had a feeling likewise, of more instinctive origin, that to be kind to little children was an important branch of his office. So he drew Annie close to him, as he sat in his easy-chair, laid his plump cheek against her thin white one, and said in the gentlest way: "And what do you want a song-book for, dawtie?" "To learn bonnie sangs oot o', sir. Dinna ye think they're the bonniest things in a' the warl',--sangs, sir?" For Annie had by this time learned to love ballad-verse above everything but Alec and Dowie. "And what kind o' sangs do ye like?" the clergyman asked, instead of replying. "I like them best that gar ye greit, sir." At every answer, she looked up in his face with her open clear blue eyes. And the minister began to love her not merely because she was a child, but because she was this child. "Do ye sing them?" he asked, after a little pause of pleased gazing into the face of the child. "Na, na; I only say them. I dinna ken the tunes o' them." "And do you say them to Mr Bruce?" "Mr Bruce, sir! Mr Bruce wad say I was daft. I wadna say a sang to him, sir, for--for--for a' the sweeties i' the shop." "Well, who do you say them to?"