cause she is lone and a
widow, to make a Moloch of herself, and have the children sacrificed
to her in that way? It's enough to make idiots of some of them. She
had better see to it. You tell her that--from me, if you like. And
don't you meddle with school affairs. I'll take my young men," he
added with a smile, "to school when I see fit."

"I'm sure, sir," said Mrs. Mitchell, putting her blue striped apron to
her eyes, "I asked your opinion before I took him."

"I believe I did say something about its being time he were able to
read, but I recollect nothing more.--You must have misunderstood me,"
he added, willing to ease her descent to the valley of her
humiliation.

She walked away without another word, sniffing the air as she went,
and carrying her hands folded under her apron. From that hour I
believe she hated me.

My father looked after her with a smile, and then looked down on me,
saying--

"She's short in the temper, poor woman! and we mustn't provoke her."

I was too well satisfied to urge my victory by further complaint. I
could afford to let well alone, for I had been delivered as from the
fiery furnace, and the earth and the sky were laughing around me. Oh!
what a sunshine filled the world! How glad the larks, which are the
praisers amongst the birds, were that blessed morning! The demon of
oppression had hidden her head ashamed, and fled to her den!

CHAPTER VIII

A New Schoolmistress

"But, Ranald," my father continued, "what are we to do about the
reading? I fear I have let you go too long. I didn't want to make
learning a burden to you, and I don't approve of children learning to
read too soon; but really, at your age, you know, it is time you were
beginning. I have time to teach you some things, but I can't teach you
everything. I have got to read a great deal and think a great deal,
and go about my parish a good deal. And your brother Tom has heavy
lessons to learn at school, and I have to help him. So what's to be
done, Ranald, my boy? You can't go to the parish school before you've
learned your letters."

"There's Kirsty, papa," I suggested.

"Yes; there's Kirsty," he returned with a sly smile. "Kirsty can do
everything, can't she?"

"She can speak Gaelic," I said with a tone of triumph, bringing her
rarest accomplishment to the forefront.

"I wish you could speak Gaelic," said my father, thinking of his wife,
I believe, whose mother tongue it was. "But that is not what you w