Perhaps because her eyes were of a flashing black that pierced one like a steel blade, Sarah usually looked down in speaking to you, but now she gave Carmichael one swift, comprehensive look that judged him soul and body, then her eyes fell, and her face, always too hard and keen, softened. "I will try, sir, to make you comfortable, and you will tell me anything that is wrong." "You took us by surprise, Sarah," and Carmichael, after his hearty fashion, seized his housekeeper's hand; "let me bid you welcome to the manse. I hope you will be happy here, and not feel lonely." But the housekeeper only bowed, and turned to his aunt. "Dinner at six? As you were not in, and it did not seem any use consulting the woman that was here, I am preparing for that hour." "Well, ye see, Sarah, we have just been taking tea, with something to it, but if--" "Gentlemen prefer evening dinner, ma'am." "Quite right, Sarah," burst in Carmichael in great glee; "tea-dinner is the most loathsome meal ever invented, and we 'll never have it in the Free Manse. "That is an admirable woman, auntie," as Sarah disappeared, "with sound views on important subjects. I 'll never ask again where she came from; she is her own testimonial." "You mauna be extravagant, John; Sarah hes never seen a manse before, and I must tell her not to--" "Ruin me, do you mean, by ten courses every evening, like the dinners West-end philanthropists used to give our men to show them how to behave at table? We 'll be very economical, only having meat twice a week--salt fish the other days--but it will always be dinner." "What ails you at tea-dinner, John? it's very tasty and homely." "It's wicked, auntie, and has done more injury to religion than drinking. No, I'm not joking--that is a childish habit--but giving utterance to profound truth, which ought to be proclaimed on the house-tops, or perhaps in the kitchens. "Let me explain, and I 'll make it as plain as day--all heresy is just bad thinking, and that comes from bad health, and the foundation of health is food. A certain number of tea-dinners would make a man into a Plymouth brother. It's a mere question of time. "You see if a man's digestion is good he takes a cheerful view of things; but if he is full of bile, then he is sure that everybody is going to be lost except himself and his little set, and that's heresy. Apologetics is just dietetics; now there 's an epigram made for you on the spot, and you don't know what it means, so we 'll have a walk instead." His aunt knew what was coming, but was too late to resist, so she was twice taken round the room for exercise, till she cried out for mercy, and was left to rest while Carmichael went out to get an appetite for that dinner. Nothing was said during its progress, but when Sarah had finally departed after her first triumph, won under every adverse circumstance of strangeness and limited resources, Carmichael took his aunt's hand and kissed it.