for that day, we were clerk and parson. I was struck by this reception
into so tender a surprise that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed
the hope was one of those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with
no design upon reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my
grandfather should strip himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts
and reminders of his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he
should bestow it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling children, leaving
all that to my aunt; he had fared hard himself, and blubbered under the
rod in the last century; and his ways were still Spartan for the young.
The last word I heard upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He had
over-walked in the teeth of an east wind, and was now near the end of
his many days. He sat by the dining-room fire, with his white hair, pale
face, and bloodshot eyes, a somewhat awful figure; and my aunt had given
him a dose of our good old Scots medicine, Dr. Gregory's powder. Now
that remedy, as the work of a near kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have
a savour of romance for the imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the
palate. The old gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and that being
accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, like a child's, munching a
"barley-sugar kiss." But when my aunt, having the canister open in her
hands, proposed to let me share in the sweets, he interfered at once. I
had had no Gregory; then I should have no barley-sugar kiss: so he
decided with a touch of irritation. And just then the phaeton coming
opportunely to the kitchen door--for such was our unlordly fashion--I
was taken for the last time from the presence of my grandfather.

Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old minister. I must
suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I,
though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them.
He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it
in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on the
quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have
been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also and am persuaded
I can read him well, though I own I never have been told so. He made
embroidery, designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never
made anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of
knitting, which was as black as the chimney before I had done wi