"Hae ye ony pieces and milk for wee boys?" he said. The byre lass laughed. "Ye like pieces and milk better than kisses," said she. "Hoo does that come?" "Pieces and milk are better for ye!" said Boy Hugh, stating an undeniable truth. "It's a peety," said Mary Bell, sententiously, "that we dinna aye ken what's guid for us." And she was thoughtful for some moments. "Come awa', bairns," she said, taking Gavin from Vara, and carrying him herself into a milk house, which was filled with a pleasant smell of curds and cheese. Hugh Boy went wandering about, wondering at the great tin basins filled with milk to the brim, some fresh and white, and some covered smoothly with a thick yellow coating of cream. "I never thocht there was as muckle milk in the world!" said Boy Hugh. So here the children ate and drank, and were refreshed. And as she set before them each new dainty—farles of cake, thick new scones, milk with the cream still generously stirred amongst it, fresh new milk yet warm from the cow for Gavin, Mary Bell said: "This is better than mindin' a text! Sirce me, heard ye ever the like o' it—'To the land o' the leal'?' An' she took it a' in. She reads a' the Bible ever she reads between her sleeps in the kirk, I'se warrant. Wait till I see Jamie Mailsetter; I'll hae a rare bar to tell him!" It was an hour after, much comforted and refreshed, with a back load of provisions and one of Mary Bell's hardly-earned shillings, that the wanderers set out. They continued to wave her their farewells till they were far down the loaning. And they might well be sorry, for there were not many people so kind and strong-hearted as Mary Bell to be met with between the Town of Pilgrimage and the City of the Twelve Foundations. And some of these are rough-handed and weather-beaten men and women, who work out their Christianity in feeding calves and bairns instead of parading texts, keeping the word of God in their hearts according to the commandment. ADVENTURE XXXV. THE KNIGHT IN THE SOFT HAT. And so their second day was a good day, as most days are that are well begun with a good breakfast. For, together with a good conscience, that makes all the difference. And especially when you are Hugh Boy's age, for then even the conscience does not so much matter.