, a certain man has told
us, are the owners of a trinity of bad things--Scotch whisky, Scotch
obstinacy and Scotch religion. What the first-mentioned article has to
do with the second and the third, I do not know, but certain it is that
the second and the third are hopelessly intertwined--this according to
Ian MacLaren, who ought to know.

This obstinacy in right proportion constitutes will, and without will
life languishes and projects die a-borning. But mixed up with this
religious obstinacy is a goodly jigger of secretiveness, and in order to
gain his own point the religion of the owner does not prevent him from
prevarication. In "Margaret Ogilvie," that exquisite tribute to his
mother by Barrie, the author shows us a most religious woman who was
well up to the head of the Sapphira class. The old lady had been reading
a certain book, and there was no reason why she should conceal the fact.
The son suddenly enters and finds the mother sitting quietly looking out
of the window. She was suspiciously quiet. The son questions her
somewhat as follows:

"What are you doing, mother?"

"Nothing," was the answer.

"Have you been reading?"

"Do I look like it?"

"Why, yes--the book on your lap!"

"What book?"

"The book under your apron."

And so does this sweetly charming and deeply religious old lady prove
her fitness in many ways to membership in the liar's league. She
secretes, prevaricates, quibbles, lays petty traps and mouses all day
long. The Eleventh Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Snoop," evidently had
never been called to her attention, and even her gifted son is seemingly
totally unaware of it. So Thomas Stevenson, excellent man that he was,
turned to subterfuge, and telegraphed his runaway son that his mother
was sick, appealing to his love for his mother to lure him back.

However, children do not live with their forebears for nothing--they
know their parents just as well as their parents know them. Robert Louis
reasoned that it was quite as probable that his father lied as that his
mother was sick. He yielded to the stronger attraction--and stuck to the
ship.

He was sailing to America because he had received word that Fanny
Osbourne was very ill. Half a world divided them, but attraction to
lovers is in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. He must go to
her!

She was sick and in distress. He must go to her. The appeals of his
parents--even their dire displeasure--the ridicule of relatives,