her moved about quietly for a
while, removing the tea-things and doing what was to be done about the
house. When all this was over, and they sat down with the rest,
Clifton, and even Elizabeth, awaited with a certain curiosity and
interest the discussion of some important matter of opinion or doctrine
between the old people and the minister, as was the way during the
minister's visits to most of the old Scotch houses of the place. But
Mrs Fleming had changed, and the times had changed, since the days when
old Mr Hollister and his friend went about to discuss the question of a
union with the good folks of North Gore, and the household had changed
also. The children sitting there so quiet, yet so observant, came in
for a share of the minister's notice, and when their grandmother
proposed that they should arrange themselves before him in the order of
their ages to be catechised by him, he entered into the spirit of the
occasion as nobody in Gershom had seen him enter into anything yet. He
knew all about it. He had been catechised in his youth in the orthodox
manner of his country, and he acquitted himself well. From "What is the
chief end of man?" until one after another of the children stopped, and
even Katie hesitated, he went with shut book. It was very creditable to
him in Mrs Fleming's opinion, quite as satisfactory as a formal
discussion would have been in assuring her of the nature and extent of
his doctrinal knowledge, and the soundness of his views generally.

"He'll win through," said she to herself; "he has been dazed with books
till he has fallen out of acquaintance with his fellow-creatures, and
he'll need to ken mair about them before he can do much good in his
work. But he'll learn, there is no fear."

The minister had other questions to ask at "the bairns" that had never
been written in any catechism, and he had new things to tell them, and
old things to tell them in a new way, and, as she looked and listened,
Mrs Fleming nodded to her husband and said to herself again, "He'll win
through."

"Bairns," said she impressively, "you see the good of learning your
Bible and your catechism when you are young; take an example from the
minister."

And with this the bairns were dismissed from their position; for the
rest of the evening till bedtime it was expected that they were "to be
seen and not heard," as was the way with bairns when their grandmother
was young. The two eldest, Katie and Davie, were