parsons, and I'm quite used to it. You can get used to 'most
anything."

Maxwell laughed as he responded:

"You speak as if it weren't always a pleasure, Mrs. Burke."

"Well, I must admit that there are parsons and parsons. They are
pretty much of a lottery, and it is generally my luck to draw blanks.
But don't you worry about that; you don't look a bit like a parson."

"I think that's a rather doubtful compliment."

"Oh, well, you know what I mean. There are three kinds of people in
the world; men, women, and parsons; and I like a parson who is a man
first, and a parson afterwards; not one who is a parson first, and a
man two weeks Tuesday come Michaelmas."

Donald laughed: he felt sure he was going to make friends with this
shrewd yet open-hearted member of his flock. The pace slackened as the
road began a steep ascent. Mrs. Burke let the horses walk up the hill,
the slackened reins held in one hand; in the other lolled the whip,
which now and then she raised, tightening her grasp upon it as if for
use, on second thoughts dropping it to idleness again and clucking to
the horses instead. It was typical of her character--the means of
chastisement held handy, but in reserve, and usually displaced by
other methods of suasion.

As they turned down over the brow of the hill they drove rapidly, and
as the splendid landscape of rolling country, tilled fields and
pasture, stretching on to distant wooded mountains, spread out before
him, Maxwell exclaimed enthusiastically, drawing a deep breath of the
exhilarating air:

"How beautiful it is up here! You must have a delightful climate."

"Well," she replied, "I don't know as we have much climate to speak
of. We have just a job lot of weather, and we take it regular--once
after each meal, once before goin' to bed, and repeat if necessary
before mornin'. I won't say but it's pretty good medicine, at that.
There'd be no show for the doctor, if it wasn't fashionable to invite
him in at the beginnin' and the end of things."

Jonathan, who up to this time had been silent, felt it incumbent to
break into the conversation a bit, and interposed:

"I suppose you've never been up in these parts before?"

"No," Maxwell responded; "but I've always intended to come up during
the season for a little hunting some time. Was there much sport last
year?"

"Well, I can't say as there was, and I can't say _as_ there wasn't.
The most I recollect was that two city fellers shot a guid