They themselves were of an order peculiar to no class, but scattered through all; without any education worth speaking of, except the two plain indispensable faculties of reading and writing, Harry Muir and his sisters, knowing nothing of the world, had unconsciously reached at and attained the higher society which the world of books and imagination opens to delicate minds. They were not aware that their own taste was unusually refined, or their own intellect more cultivated than their fellows, but they were at once sensible of Cuthbert’s superiority, and hailed it with eager regard--not without a little involuntary pride either, to find that this, almost the most highly cultivated person they had ever met, was, after all, only equal to themselves. There are the bells, echoing one after another, through the now populous streets. Mrs. McGarvie, from the little shop below, has locked her door, and issues forth, with her good man, who is a rope-maker and deacon of his trade, to the Barony Kirk, with Rab, her large good-humoured red-haired son, and her little pretty daughter Ellen, a worker in the mill, following in her train; and with great dignity, in green silk gowns and tippets of fur, Miss Jeanie and Miss Aggie Rodger sail from the door, bound for the Relief Meeting-house, while Rose Muir ties on Violet’s neat bonnet, and arranges her little cloak, and glides away herself to complete her own dress, wondering, with a little flutter, what Mr. Charteris will do now. Mr. Charteris very speedily decided the question, for he stood waiting, with his hat in his hand, when Rose entered the parlour, cloaked and bonneted. Mr. Charteris had never heard Dr. Jamieson. He thought, if the young ladies would permit him, he should be glad to walk with them to the Church. And the young ladies did permit him, with much shy good will, and Mr. Charteris listened to Dr. Jamieson’s fine voice and polished sentences with great edification. The Doctor was a man in his prime, bland and dignified, and knew all the economics of sermon-writing, and that famous art of domestic wisdom which makes a little go a great way; nevertheless, Mr. Charteris turned back some distance on the road, when the service was ended, to animadvert upon the Doctor, and to get up a very pretty little controversy with Rose, who, as in duty bound, refused to hear a word in detriment of her minister, so that the discussion carried Mr. Charteris back again to the very door, and gave him another prospect of the Misses Rodger’s green silk gowns, at sight of which, raising his hat, to the great admiration of Violet, Mr. Charteris turned reluctantly away. CHAPTER IV. “For the sweet Spring that bringeth joy to all, Frets the pale sufferer bound to painful couch, Or chamber dim and still.”