"I fancy you are a dear, good Sophy," said I, kissing her; "and I suppose, if Mr Liversedge asked you to shake hands with a chimney-sweep just come down the chimney, you would be delighted to do it." "Well, perhaps I might," said Sophy, laughing. "But that, Cary, I should have done, not for him, but for our Master." I found that I liked Mr Liversedge very much, as one would wish to like a brother-in-law that was to be. His whole heart seems to be in his Lord's work: and if, perhaps, he is a little sharp and abrupt at times, I think it is simply because he sees everything quickly and distinctly, and speaks as he sees. I was afraid he would have something of the pope about him, but I find he is not like that at all. He lets you alone for all mere differences of opinion, though he will talk them over with you readily if he sees that you wish it. But let those keen, black eyes perceive something which he thinks sin, and down he comes on you in the very manner of the old prophets. Yet show him that he has made a mistake, and that your action was justified, and he begs your forgiveness in a moment. And I never saw a man who seemed more fitted to deal with broken-hearted sinners. To them he is tenderness and comfort itself. "He just takes pattern frae his Maister; that's whaur it is," said old Elspie. "Mind ye, He was unco gentle wi' the puir despised publicans, and vara tender to the wife that had been a sinner. It was the Pharisees He was hard on. And that's just what the minister is. Miss Cary, he's just the best blessing the Lord ever sent till Brocklebank!" "I hardly thought, Elspie," said I, a little mischievously, "to hear you speak so well of a Prelatist clergyman." "Hoot awa', we a' ha'e our bees in our bonnets, Miss Cary," said the old woman, a trifle testily. "The minister's no pairfect, I daur say. But he's as gran' at praying as John Knox himself and he gars ye feel the loue and loueliness o' Christ like Maister Rutherford did. And sae lang 's he'll do that, I'm no like to quarrel wi' him, if he do ha'e a fancy for lawn sleeves and siccan rubbish, I wish him better sense, that's a'. Maybe he'll ha'e it ane o' thae days." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I cannot understand Hatty as she is now. For a while after that affair with the Crosslands she was just like a drooping, broken-down flower; all her pertness, and even her brightness, completely gone. Now that is changed, and she has become, not pert again, but hard--hard and bitter. Nobody can do anything to suit her, and she says things now and then which make me jump. Things, I mean, as if she believed nothing and cared for nobody. When Hatty speaks in that way, I often see my Aunt Kezia looking at her with a strange light in her eyes, which seems to be half pain and half hopefulness. Mr Liversedge, I fancy, is studying her; and I am not sure that he knows what to make of her.