ld coffee!" said Davie: "I don't see why you
should!"

"Because I prefer to do with my coffee as I please; I will not have hot
coffee for my master. I won't have it anything to me what humour the
coffee may be in. I will be Donal Grant, whether the coffee be cold or
hot. A bit of practical philosophy for you, Davie!"

"I think I understand you, sir: you would not have a man make a fuss
about a trifle."

"Not about a real trifle. The co-relative of a trifle, Davie, is a
smile. But I would take heed whether the thing that is called a trifle
be really a trifle. Besides, there may be a point in a trifle that is
the egg of an ought. It is a trifle whether this or that is nice; it is
a point that I should not care. With us highlanders it is a point of
breeding not to mind what sort of dinner we have, but to eat as
heartily of bread and cheese as of roast beef. At least so my father
and mother used to teach me, though I fear that refinement of good
manners is going out of fashion even with highlanders."

"It is good manners!" rejoined Davie with decision, "--and more than
good manners! I should count it grand not to care what kind of dinner I
had. But I am afraid it is more than I shall ever come to!"

"You will never come to it by trying because you think it grand. Only
mind, I did not say we were not to enjoy our roast beef more than our
bread and cheese; that would be not to discriminate, where there is a
difference. If bread and cheese were just as good to us as roast beef,
there would be no victory in our contentment."

"I see!" said Davie.--"Wouldn't it be well," he asked, after a moment's
pause, "to put one's self in training, Mr. Grant, to do without
things--or at least to be able to do without them?"

"It is much better to do the lessons set you by one who knows how to
teach, than to pick lessons for yourself out of your books. Davie, I
have not that confidence in myself to think I should be a good teacher
of myself."

"But you are a good teacher of me, sir!"

"I try--but then I'm set to teach you, and I am not set to teach
myself: I am only set to make myself do what I am taught. When you are
my teacher, Davie, I try--don't I--to do everything you tell me?"

"Yes, indeed, sir!"

"But I am not set to obey myself!"

"No, nor anyone else, sir! You do not need to obey anyone, or have
anyone teach you, sir!"

"Oh, don't I, Davie! On the contrary, I could not get on for one
solitary moment without somebody