"His sublimest burst," Waster Lunny came back to tell me, "was about the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no worth a snuff. What a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! I dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but Mr. Dishart wouldna gi'e a blade o' grass for't. Ay, and I used to think that in their foolishness about women there was dagont little differ atween the unlearned and the highly edicated." THE MUTUAL DISCOVERY From 'The Little Minister': by permission of the American Publishers' Corporation A young man thinks that he alone of mortals is impervious to love, and so the discovery that he is in it suddenly alters his views of his own mechanism. It is thus not unlike a rap on the funny-bone. Did Gavin make this discovery when the Egyptian left him? Apparently he only came to the brink of it and stood blind. He had driven her from him for ever, and his sense of loss was so acute that his soul cried out for the cure rather than for the name of the malady. In time he would have realized what had happened, but time was denied him, for just as he was starting for the mudhouse Babbie saved his dignity by returning to him.... She looked up surprised, or seemingly surprised, to find him still there. "I thought you had gone away long ago," she said stiffly. "Otherwise," asked Gavin the dejected, "you would not have came back to the well?" "Certainly not." "I am very sorry. Had you waited another moment I should have been gone." This was said in apology, but the willful Egyptian chose to change its meaning. "You have no right to blame me for disturbing you," she declared with warmth. "I did not. I only--" "You could have been a mile away by this time. Nanny wanted more water." Babbie scrutinized the minister sharply as she made this statement. Surely her conscience troubled her, for on his not answering immediately she said, "Do you presume to disbelieve me? What could have made me return except to fill the pans again?" "Nothing," Gavin admitted eagerly, "and I assure you---" Babbie should have been grateful to his denseness, but it merely set her mind at rest. "Say anything against me you choose," she told him. "Say it as brutally as you like, for I won't listen." She stopped to hear his response to that, and she looked so cold that it almost froze on Gavin's lips. "I had no right," he said dolefully, "to speak to you as I did." "You had not," answered the proud Egyptian. She was looking away from him to show that his repentance was not even interesting to her. However, she had forgotten already not to listen.... She was very near him, and the tears had not yet dried on her eyes. They were laughing eyes, eyes in distress, imploring eyes. Her pale face, smiling, sad, dimpled yet entreating forgiveness, was the one prominent thing in the world to him just then. He wanted to kiss her. He would do it as soon as her eyes rested on his, but she continued without regarding him.