ced there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks to its
centre," interpolated Francesca impertinently.

"It is true," continued Miss Dalziel, "you will often sit beside a
minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid
appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be, and
flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your soul!"

"My niece's tongue is an unruly member," said the ex-Moderator, who was
present at this diatribe, "and the principal mistakes she makes in
her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them as
conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal meetings
together of people who wish to be better acquainted."

"Hot bacon and eggs would be no harm to friendship," answered Miss
Dalziel, with an affectionate moue.

"Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety," said the ex-Moderator,
"and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young ladies who have
been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts."

It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical
church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after
we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on
a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she
confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves
from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life,--often,
however, according to her own account, getting a particularly
indigestible 'stane.'

She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is
making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and
impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry'
creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster
a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is
truth itself.

"Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop,
spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear the
Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there
for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--AFF AN' ON!" with an
emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is
'aff' outnumber those when he is 'on'... "Ye havena heard auld Dr. B
yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) "He's
a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin' maist awfu'
dreich in his sermons, though when he'