into the dim white chaos of whirling snow,
David had settled it that there would be no carriage down from the "Big
House" that day. "The drifts will be sax fit in the howes o' the
muir-road," he said, as he settled himself to sleep till midday, with a
solid consciousness that he had that day done all that the most exacting
could require of him. As his thoughts composed themselves to a
continuation of his doze, while remaining deliciously conscious of the
wild turmoil outside, David Grier remembered the wayfarer who had got a
lift in his cart to Cauldshields the night before. "It was weel for the
bit bairn that I fell in wi' her at the Cross Roads," said he, as he
stirred his wife in the ribs with his elbow, to tell her it was time to
get up and make the fire.

* * * * *

In the manse of Cauldshields the Reverend Eli M'Diarmid's housekeeper
was getting him ready for church.

"There'll no' be mony fowk at the kirk the day, gin there be ony ava';
but that's nae raison that ye shouldna gang oot snod," she said, as she
brushed him faitly down. "Ye mind hoo Miss Elsie used to say that ye wad
gang oot a verra ragman gin she didna look efter ye!" The minister
turned his back, and the housekeeper continued, like the wise woman of
Tekoa, "Eh, but she was a heartsome bairn, Miss Elsie; an' a bonny--nane
like till her in a' the pairish!"

"Oh, woman, can ye not hold your tongue?" said the minister, knocking
his hands angrily together.

"Haud my tongue or no haud my tongue, ye're no' gaun withoot yer sermon
an' yer plaid, minister," said his helper. So with that she brought the
first from the study table and placed it in the leather case which held
his bands, and reached the plaid from its nail in the hall. It was not
for nothing that she had watched the genesis and growth of that sermon
which she placed in the case. Some folk declare that she suggested the
text. Nor is this so wholly impossible as it looks, for Cauldshields'
housekeeper was a very wise woman indeed.

It was but a step to the kirk door from the manse, but it took the
minister nearly twenty minutes to overcome the drifts and get the key
turned in the lock--for in these hard times it was no uncommon thing for
the minister to be also the doorkeeper of the tabernacle. Then he took
hold of the bell-rope, and high above him the notes swung out into the
air; for though the storm had now settled, vast drifts remained to tell
of the bla