ning and evening, whatever the hurry might
be. The Scriptures were read and a psalm was sung, and then the mother
or Hamish offered a few words of prayer. They would as soon have
thought of going without their morning and evening meals as without
worship. It would have been a godless and graceless house, indeed,
without that, in the opinion of those who had been accustomed to family
worship all their lives.

Shenac was not often consciously impatient of the time it took, and her
voice was clearest and sweetest always in their song of praise. But too
often it was her voice only that rose to Heaven. Her heart was full of
other things; her thoughts often wandered to the field or the dairy,
even when the words of prayer or praise were on her lips. She lost the
habit of the few minutes' quiet reading of her Bible in the early
morning, and also before she went to bed; and her prayers were brief and
hurried, and sometimes they were forgotten altogether. She and Hamish
had always been fond of reading, and though few new books found their
way among them, they had gone over and over the old ones, liking them
chiefly because of the long talks to which they gave rise between them.

Many of their favourite books were religious, and various were the
speculations as to doctrine and duty into which they used to fall.
There might have been some danger in this, had not a spirit of reverence
for God's authority been deep and strong within them. It was to the
infallible standard of the inspired volume that all things were brought.
With what is written there all theories and opinions were compared, and
received or rejected according as they agreed with or differed from the
voice of inspiration. I do not mean that they were always right in
their judgment, or that their speculations were not sometimes foolish
and vain. But their spirit was right. They sought to know the truth,
and, in a way, they helped each other to walk in it.

But all this seemed past now. There was no time for reading or for
talking--at least Shenac had none. All day she was too busy, and at
night she was too weary. Even the long, quiet Sabbath-day was changed.
Not that there was work done on that day, either within or without the
house. I daresay there were many in the township who did not keep the
law of the Sabbath rest in spirit; but there were none in those days who
did not keep it in letter, in appearance. In the fields, which through
the week were