Little Margaret cared for such lamentations. She sat softly swinging the heavy chair against the wall, which was not an easy thing to do. She had not the aspect or physiognomy adapted for a hoyden; her features were small and refined; her color more pale than warm, lighted up by evanescent rose-flushes, but never brilliant; her hair singularly fine in texture and abundant in quantity, but of no tint more pronounced than brown, the most ordinary and commonplace of shades. Her face was a cloudy, shadowy little face, but possessed by a smile which came and went in the suddenest way, brightening her and everything about her. No particular art of the toilet aided or hindered the prettiness of her little slight figure. If she was not as God made her, she was at least as Miss Buist in the village made her--in a dress of blue serge, as near the fashion as possible, of which the peculiarity was that it was rather tight where it ought to be loose, and loose where it ought to be tight. But Margaret’s soul had not been awakened to the point of dress, and so long as it did not hurt, she minded little. Her shoes were made, and strongly made, by the village shoemaker; everything about her was of the soil. When she had swung her chair to the wall, she let it drop back again to its place, and swallowed a little yawn as she watched the water brim into the pail. “What will I do, Bell?” she said. “What will I do next, Bell?” (If any one thinks that Margaret ought to have said, “What shall I do?” they are to remember that this is not how we use our verbs in the kingdom of Fife.) “Oh, Miss Margret! if you would but do one thing, just _wan_ thing, without changin’ for wan hour by the clock!” “You’ve been saying that as long as I can mind. You, you never change, and that’s why I like to be aye changing. There are so few things to do in the afternoon. The morning’s better--there’s something in the air. I’m always content in the morning.” “Eh ay! you’re very content, flichterin’ about like the birds among the trees, wan moment on this branch, the ither on that; but the afternoon, Miss Margret, the afternoon’s the time for rest--if you’ve been doing onything the fore part of the day.” “If you want to rest,” said Margaret; “you, perhaps, Bell, that are getting old, and papa-- I’ve seen _him_ sleepin’. Figure such a thing! Sleepin’! with the sun in the sky!” “I can figure it real well,” said Bell; “it’s no often a poor body gets the chance: but just to close your eyes in the drowsy time, when a’s well redd up, the fire burning steady, and the kettle near the boil, and pussy bumming by your side, ah, that’s pleasant! it’s a kind o’ glimmer o’ heaven.” “Heaven! the kettle on the boil, and pussy--that’s a funny heaven,” said Margaret, with a laugh.