courtly old gentleman, with a white tie, yards long, wound round his neck numberless times, and finished off by an odd little bow made out of the extreme ends; a learned old man with a turn of the leg, suggesting a youth when calves were visible, and a vast store of classical quotations remaining over from the days when he lectured on the humanities at St. Andrews. Neither did the Bishop consider the Reverend Father Macdonald, who came once in three months or so, and generally on a week day, an intruder. On the contrary, the Reverend James had instructions to ask him to dinner, and, if it was a Friday, to have cockle soup and stewed lentils for him; that is to say, if the invitation was accepted, which it was not as a rule, the Father preferring to eat potatoes and butter at the Camerons, and endure the old lady's good-natured scorn, for the sake of hearing Marjory sing Scotch songs and play Scarlatti. For Dr. Carmichael's one relaxation had been, music, in which, as in other things, the girl had proved herself to be an apt pupil. As often as not, too, on these occasions, old Mrs. Cameron would send a man with the dogcart down the Strath to fetch up Mr. Wilson, and then the two old enemies could fence at each other courteously over the single glass of port, for which the Jesuit had a dispensation. And, if the buttons seemed inclined to come off the foils, Marjory, in the next room, would strike up, "Come, bring to me a stoup o' wine, and bring it in a silver tassie." Then their old heads would wag, and they would give over the endless battle for the sake of hearing a "bonnie lassie" sing their favourite song. But it was very different when the Free Church missioner came round, for he was an earnest, red-haired person, who any day of the week would gladly have testified against Black Prelacy to the bitter end of the stake. He was a stumbling-block, even to Marjory, who professed calm tolerance; but then those courtly old admirers of hers, to say nothing of Cousin Tom's rather foreign manners, had spoilt her. So that amid all her theories--the theories of clever youth instinct with the love of justice and liberty--she could not help being repelled by the roughness of life when, as it were, she touched and handled it. The people themselves, however, thought it a sign of strength to bang the pulpit and bellow, as, indeed, it was, undoubtedly. So the consensus of opinion in all sects was that the Free Church had the finest preacher. Not that it mattered much in a place where church-going on a Sunday was a recognised dissipation, which had to last for a week. Thus, no matter who was in the pulpit, the little school-house on a fine day overflowed; and even the Reverend Father Macdonald had not a few applicants for a blessing against witchcraft if the cows did not milk properly. This, however, was done on the sly, by accident as it were, when the petitioners chanced to meet priestly authority in the post-office.