water, it would be a grand thing. And, as Katie says,
it's almost as easy to take care of the milk of ten cows as six, and
there is pasture enough. As to the churning, if it could be done by the
running water, wouldna that be a fine help? And we must just have
patience with him, as the Lord has had with us this many a year and
day."

Mrs Fleming got no answer to all this. She did not expect one. This
was the way she took to familiarise the grandfather's mind with plans
that might come to something. The old man's habitual caution was
changing with the passing years into timidity and dread of change; and
his long dwelling on his state of indebtedness, and the subjection to
his "enemy" that it implied, made him afraid of anything that would
render it necessary to dispense the smallest sum for any other purpose
than the payment of this debt. His son James had let his money go from
him with a free hand, and though he might have got it back again had he
lived, his father could not but remember that it was through his plans,
through his desire to improve the fortunes of his family, which had
carried him beyond his means, that this debt, or a part of it, had been
left upon them.

As for Davie, what could a lad like him know about such things? Fancies
that would lead to nothing but waste and want! And yet his wife's words
told upon him as all her words did sooner or later.

"Would you like it then, Katie, my woman?" said he, as one night, when
all the work was over, he came on Katie sitting with Nannie and Sandy on
the bank of the burn. Davie was on the other side pacing up and down,
measuring out, as they had done together many times before, the site of
the new milk-house. Many thoughts and words had Davie expended upon it,
and so had Katie for that matter. So she rose and walked with her
grandfather along the burnside, out of Davie's hearing, and then she
answered brightly:

"Ay, that I would, grandfather; not just now, ye ken, but after a while,
when it can be done without going into debt. It would be grand. And I
could sell twice as much butter as we make now, if we had it. I like
butter-making." And so on, touching on more of Davie's fancies than her
grandfather had heard of yet, till they came back to the lad, still
intent on his measurements, with his eyes fixed on a paper on which he
was industriously figuring.

"The foundation must be of stone, Katie, because of the swelling of the
burn in spring a