grown ones. Una is really quite as
tall as little Keith, and much more active. You saw he could not play at
the game at all, and she was all life and enjoyment, with no notion of
shyness."

"It does not enter into her composition."

"And she speaks much plainer. I never miss a word she says, and I don't
understand Keith a bit, though he tells such long stories."

"How backward!"

"Then she knows all her letters by sight--almost all, and Ermine can
never get him to tell b from d; and you know how she can repeat so many
little verses, while he could not even say, 'Thank you, pretty cow,'
this morning, when I wanted to hear him."

"Vast interval!"

"It is only eight months; but then Una is such a bright, forward child."

"Highly-developed precocity!"

"Now, Alick, what am I about? Why are you agreeing with me?"

"I am between the horns of a dilemma. Either our young chieftain must be
a dunce, or we are rearing the Clever Woman of the family."

"I hope not!" exclaimed Rachel.

"Indeed? I would not grudge her a superior implement, even if I had
sometimes cut my own fingers."

"But, Alick, I really do not think I ever was such a Clever Woman."

"I never thought you one," he quietly returned.

She smiled. This faculty had much changed her countenance. "I see," she
said, thoughtfully, "I had a few intellectual tastes, and liked to think
and read, which was supposed to be cleverness; and my wilfulness made me
fancy myself superior in force of character, in a way I could never have
imagined if I had lived more in the world. Contact with really clever
people has shown me that I am slow and unready."

"It was a rusty implement, and you tried weight instead of edge. Now it
is infinitely brighter."

"But, Alick," she said, leaving the thought of herself for that of her
child, "I believe you may be right about Una, for," she added in low
voice, "she is like the most practically clever person I ever saw."

"True," he answered gravely, "I see it every day, in every saucy gesture
and coaxing smile, when she tries to turn away displeasure in her
naughty fits. I hardly knew how to look on at her airs with Keith,
it was so exactly like the little sister I first knew. Rachel, such
cleverness as that is a far more perilous gift to woman than your
plodding intellectuality could ever be. God grant," he added, with
one of the effusions which sometimes broke through his phlegmatic
temperament, "that this little fellow may be