the use of many words. She cared for
him, but she was not fit to be his wife yet. This was the burden of her
argument, gone over and over in all possible ways; and the first part
was so sweet to Mr Stewart that he was fain to take patience and let
her have her own way in the rest.

In Shenac's country, happily, it is not considered a strange thing that
a young girl should wish to pursue her education even after she is
twenty, so she had no discomfort to encounter on the score of being out
of her 'teens. She lived first with her cousin, Christie More, who no
longer occupied rooms behind her husband's shop, but a handsome house at
a reasonable distance towards the west end of the town. Afterwards she
lived in the school-building, because it gave her more time and a better
chance for study. She spent all the money that Allister had put aside
for her; but she was moderately successful in her studies, and
considered it well spent.

And when the time for the furnishing of the western manse came, there
was money forthcoming for that too; for Angus Dhu had put aside the
interest of the sum sent to him by Allister for her use from the very
first, meaning it always to furnish her house. It is possible that it
was another house he had been thinking of then; but he gave it to her
now in a way that greatly increased its value in her eyes, kissing her
and blessing her before them all.

All these years Shenac's work has been constant and varied; her duties
have been of the humblest and of the highest, from the cutting and
contriving, the making and mending of little garments, to the guiding of
wandering feet and the comforting of sorrowful souls. In the manse
there have been the usual Saturday anxieties and Monday despondencies,
needing cheerful sympathy and sometimes patient forbearance. In the
parish there have been times of trouble and times of rejoicing; times
when the heavens have seemed brass above, and the earth beneath, iron;
and times when the church has been "like a well-watered garden," having
its trees "filled with the fruits of righteousness." And in the manse
and in the parish Shenac has never, in her husband's estimation, failed
to fill well her allotted place.

The firm health and cheerful temper which helped her through the days
before Allister came home, have helped her to bear well the burdens
which other years have brought to her. The firm will, the earnest
purpose, the patience, the energy, the forge