"My niece's tongue is an unruly member," said the ex-Moderator, who was present at this diatribe, "and the principal mistake she makes in her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them as conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal meetings together of people who wish to be better acquainted." "Hot bacon and eggs would be no bar to friendship," answered Miss Dalziel, with an affectionate _moue_. "Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety," said the ex-Moderator, "and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young ladies who have been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts." It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her "opeenions" after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life, often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible "stane." She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the "meenistry" creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself. "Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--_off an' on_!" with an emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is "off" outnumber those when he is "on."... "Ye have na heard auld Dr. B yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) "He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna heed him wi' oot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seeventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee-bit, finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' an' expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gies us fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin' over, nae bit-pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clish-maclavers!... Mr. C?" (Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) "Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an' prayed for the Estaiblished, maist in the same breath,--he's a broad, leeberal mon is Mr. C!... Mr. D? Ay, I ken him