“There are plenty of stories,” said Katrin; “and I’ll tell you every one of them. But about Miss Eelen. She’s a very little thing. You at nine were bigger than she was--let us say--at sixteen. There maun be five years atween you, and now she’ll be six-and-twenty. No, it’s no auld, and she’s but a bairn to look at, and she will just be a fine friend for you, Miss Lily; for though they’re plain folk, she has been real well brought up, and away at the school in Edinburgh, and plays the pianny, and a’ that kind of thing. I have mair opinion mysel’ of a good seam; but we canna expect every-body to have that sense.” “And why will she have nothing to say to the assistant and successor? and what is his name?” “His name is Douglas, James Douglas, of a westland family, and no that ill-looking, and well likit. Eh, but you’re keen of a story, Miss Lily, like a’ your kind. But I never said she would have naething to say to him. She is just great friends with him. They are aye plotting thegether for the poor folk, as if there was nothing needed but a minister and twa-three guid words to make heaven on earth. Oh, my bonnie lady, if it could be done as easy as that! There’s that drunken body, Johnny Wright, that keeps the merchant’s shop.” Katrin was a well-educated woman in her way, and never put _f_ for _w_, which is the custom of her district; but she said _chop_ for _shop_, an etymology which it is unnecessary to follow here. “But it’s a good intention--a good intention. They are aye plotting how they are to mend their neighbors; and the strange thing is---- But, dear, bless us! what are we to be havering about other folk’s weakness when nae doubt we have plenty of our ain?” “I am not to be cheated out of my story, Katrin. Do you mean that the young minister is not a good man himself?” “Bless us, no! that’s not what I mean. He’s just as pious a lad and as weel living---- It’s no that--it’s no that. It’s just one o’ thae mysteries that you’re far o’er-young to understand. She’s been keen to mend other folk, poor lass; and that the minister should speak to them, and show them the error o’ their ways! But the dreadful thing is that her poor bit heart is just bound up in a lad--a ne’er-do-weel, that is the worst of them all. Oh, dinna speak of it, Miss Lily, dinna speak of it! I’ll tell you anither time; or, maybe, I’ll no tell ye at all. Come in and see the kye. They’re honest creatures. There’s nothing o’ the deevil and his dreadful ways in them.”