He allowed the soup to cool, and when she came
in with sweets he had barely touched his cutlet.

"It is the sauce you like, sir," with some reproach in her voice.

"So it is, Sarah--and first rate." Then he added suddenly, "Can you
put a button on this coat to-night, and give it a good brush?"

In the evening Sarah went down to post a letter, and heard the talk,
how Miss Carnegie had come home with the General, and was worthy of her
house; how the minister also had driven up with her from Muirtown; and
on her return she did her best by the coat, handling it very kindly,
and singing softly to herself "Robin Adair."

Next morning he came down in his blacks--the worst-made suit ever seen
on a man, ordered to help a village tailor at his home--and announced
his intention of starting after lunch for Saunderson's manse, beyond
Tochty woods, where he would stay all night.

"He will call on the way down, and, if he can, coming back," Sarah said
to herself, as she watched him go, "but it's a pity he should go in
such a coat; it might have been put together with a pitchfork. It only
makes the difference greater, and 't is wider than he knows already.
And yet a woman can marry beneath her without loss; but for a man it is
ruin."

She went up to his room and made it neat, which was ever in disorder on
his leaving, and then she went to a western window and looked into the
far distance.

CHAPTER VIII.

A WOMAN OF THE OLD DISPENSATION.

Every Sabbath at eleven o'clock, or as soon thereafter as the people
were seated--consideration was always shown to distant figures coming
down from the high glen--Carmichael held what might be called High Mass
in the Free Kirk. Nothing was used in praise but the Psalms of David,
with an occasional Paraphrase sanctioned by usage and sound teaching.
The prayers were expected to be elaborate in expression and careful in
statement, and it was then that they prayed for the Queen and Houses of
Parliament. And the sermon was the event to which the efforts of the
minister and the thoughts of the people had been moving for the whole
week. No person was absent except through sore sickness or urgent farm
duty; nor did rain or snow reduce the congregation by more than ten
people, very old or very young. Carmichael is now minister of a West
End kirk, and, it is freely rumoured in Drumtochty, has preached before
Lords of Session; but he has never been more nervous than facing that
handful of