'Fie, Mary! What are any of us but poor worthless creatures? We who have education and an income, should not be hard on the poor souls. The world must appear very different to them, from what it does to us. Think what it must be to look into the half empty meal-girnel, and at the little heap of potatoes, and know that that is all between them and starvation, till more is earned,--that the smallest miscarriage, a delay in receiving the weekly wage, a stumble ending in a sprain, sickness of a child, even an accident to a horse or a car, may entail a supperless night, or a day of hunger! And when all the energy and care are needed to stave off from day to day their physical destitution, is it not too much to look for those more graceful and spiritual charities which make our life pleasant? It takes so much of light and heat and moisture to support the mere plant life; and when these are so stintedly supplied, it is surely over-exacting to look for the same profusion of flower and fruit on the bare hill-side as one expects in a sheltered garden. In visiting among the poor, I have often felt humbled at the view of their sturdy fortitude under privation, and the extent of their unostentatious charities to one another. They will stint themselves of the necessaries of life to help those worse provided than themselves, but they cannot talk about it. Indeed, the beautiful act and the gracious word are never to be met with both on the same bush among these wind-swept hills, and I am thankful to say it is the deed I have oftenest observed. I feel bound to make allowance for much rugged speech which might sound hard and uncharitable to a stranger. You may sow mignonette and gilly-flower in your garden, but it is the heather, tough and sturdy, which grows upon the braes, and defies the blasts; and that, too, has its beauty and its sweetness, and we value it less only because it is more abundant and common.' 'Poor Roderick! The hebdomadal orator had broken out in him after his long rest in bed,--the habit of prelecting before a silent auditory, which many find so difficult to acquire, and which, when learnt, makes so many long-winded and pragmatical nuisances in private life. It did not trouble Mary. Born in a manse, she had been used to prelections all her life, and as the periods would grow longer and more resonant, she would know that no answer was expected, and would go on with her work. Perhaps she regarded it as practise for Sunday, most likely she did not think of it at all, as she settled more steadily to her tatting and crochet work--the Penelope's web, always beginning and never apparently coming to an end,--which kept her fingers pleasantly busy, and left her mind in perfect peace. There is no saying to what heights and depths of wisdom, or, mayhap, nonsense, Roderick might have attained. The muse theologic, after a week's inaction, inclined to long and discursive flight, but was interrupted in full career by the entrance of Mr. Sangster.