nd are forgotten, mere physical
impressions; you see one, and it is in your heart for ever, as you saw
it the first time. Wavy black hair, a low, straight forehead, hazel
eyes with long eyelashes, a perfectly-shaped Grecian nose, a strong
mouth, whose upper lip had a curve of softness, a clear-cut chin with
one dimple, small ears set high in the head, and a rich creamy
complexion--that was what flashed upon Carmichael as he turned from the
retrievers. He was a man so unobservant of women that he could not
have described a woman's dress to save his life or any other person's;
and now that he is married--he is a middle-aged man now and threatened
with stoutness--it is his wife's reproach that he does not know when
she wears her new spring bonnet for the first time. Yet he took in
this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing
on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small,
well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a
tip on it, that peeped out below her frock. Critics might have hinted
that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat
in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never
seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many
who have gone farther afield in the world than the young minister of
Drumtochty.

Carmichael was at that age when a man prides himself on dressing and
thinking as he pleases, and had quite scandalised a Muirtown elder--a
stout gentleman, who had come out in '43, and could with difficulty be
weaned from Dr. Chalmers--by making his appearance on the preceding
evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel shirt. He explained
casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely
necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from
door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly. His host was at a
loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with
the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two
and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very
impressive way, and seasoning the principles of the Free Kirk with
snuff of an excellent fragrance. It was hard even for the most
generous charity to identify the spirit of the Disruption in such a
figure, and the good elder grew so proper and so didactic that
Carmichael went from bad to worse.

"Well, you would find the congregat