ather pitied the
lad, with whom he imagined Kate was playing as a cat with a mouse.

"Have you ever seen the face below the veil?" for they did not talk
long about whist in the drawing-room. "I do not think it would be
wrong to look, for the padre told me the story.

"Yes, a very winning face. His only sister, and he simply lived for
her. She was only twelve when she died, and he loves her still,
although he hardly ever speaks of her."

They stood together before the happy girl-face enshrined in an old
man's love. They read the inscription: "My dear sister Daisy."

"I never had a sister," and Carmichael sighed.

"And I have now no brother." Their hands met as they gently lowered
the veil.

"Well, have you arranged your plans?" and the Doctor came in intent on
whist.

"Only one thing. I am going to follow Miss Carnegie's lead, and she is
always to win," said the Free Kirk minister of Drumtochty.

CHAPTER XVII.

SMOULDERING FIRES.

It is the right of every Scot--secured to him by the Treaty of Union
and confirmed by the Disruption--to criticise his minister with much
freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When
it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he
is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething wrang wi' the
text," affords an excellent way of escape, and it is open to suggest
efficiency in another department than the pulpit.

"Mister MacWheep michtna be a special preacher, but there 's nae doot
he wes a graund veesitor." Before Carmichael left the West Kirk,
Edinburgh, where he served his apprenticeship as an assistant, a worthy
elder called to bid him good-bye, and spoke faithfully, to the lad's
great delight.

"You have been very acceptable, wonderfully so for a young man, and we
shall follow your career with much interest. It is right, however, to
add, and you will accept this in a right spirit, that it was not by
preaching that you commended yourself to our people, but by your
visiting. Your sermons are what I might call . . . hazy--you will get
a hold of the truth by-and-by, no doubt--but you have a gift for
visitation."

The exact quality and popularity of this gift was excellently stated by
the wife of a working man, who referred with enthusiasm to the edifying
character of the assistant's conversation.

"Tammas misses Maister Carmichael juist terrible, for he wud come in on
a forenicht an' sit, an' smoke, an' haver