Kirsty was a Highland woman who had the charge of the house in which the farm servants lived. She was a cheerful, gracious, kind woman--a woman of God’s making, one would say, were it not that, however mysterious it may look, we cannot deny that he made Mrs. Mitchell too. It is very puzzling, I confess. I remember once that my youngest brother Davie, a very little fellow then, for he could not speak plainly, came running in great distress to Kirsty, crying, “Fee, fee!” by which he meant to indicate that a flea was rendering his life miserable. Kirsty at once undressed him and entered on the pursuit. After a successful search, while she was putting on his garments again, little Davie, who had been looking very solemn and thoughtful for some time, said, not in a questioning, but in a concluding tone-- “God didn’t make the fees, Kirsty!” “Oh yes, Davie! God made everything. God did make the fleas,” said Kirsty. Davie was silent for a while. Then he opened his mouth and spake like a discontented prophet of old: “Why doesn’t he give them something else to eat, then?” “You must ask himself that,” said Kirsty, with a wisdom I have since learned to comprehend, though I remember it shocked me a little at the time. All this set me thinking. Before the dressing of little Davie was over, I had _my_ question to put to Kirsty. It was, in fact, the same question, only with a more important object in the eye of it. “_Then_ I suppose God made Mrs. Mitchell, as well as you and the rest of us, Kirsty?” I said. “Certainly, Ranald,” returned Kirsty. “Well, I wish he hadn’t,” was my remark, in which I only imitated my baby brother, who was always much cleverer than I. “Oh! she’s not a bad sort,” said Kirsty; “though I must say, if I was her, I would try to be a little more agreeable.” To return to Kirsty: she was our constant resort. The farmhouse was a furlong or so from the manse, but with the blood pouring from a cut finger, the feet would of themselves devour that furlong rather than apply to Mrs. Mitchell. Oh! she was dear, and good, and kind, our Kirsty! In person she was short and slender, with keen blue eyes and dark hair; an uncommonly small foot, which she claimed for all Highland folk; a light step, a sweet voice, and a most bounteous hand--but there I come into the moral nature of her, for it is the mind that makes the hand bountiful. For her face, I think that was rather queer, but in truth I can hardly tell, so entirely was it the sign of good to me and my brothers; in short, I loved her so much that I do not know now, even as I did not care then, whether she was nice-looking or not. She was quite as old as Mrs. Mitchell, but we never thought of _her_ being old. She was our refuge in all time of trouble and necessity. It was she who gave us something to eat as often and as much as we wanted. She used to say it was no cheating of the minister to feed the minister’s boys.