s good as new to Hamish.
It was a new kind of arithmetic, his friend Rugg, the peddler, told
him. He knew Hamish liked that sort of thing, and so he had brought it
to him.

Hamish was quite occupied with it. He forgot the hay, and the rain, and
even his own rheumatic pains, in the interest with which he pored over
it. Shenac did not grudge him his pleasure. She even tried to get up
an interest in the unknown quantities, whose values, Hamish assured her,
were so easily discovered by the rules laid down in the book. But she
did not enter heartily into her brother's pleasure, as she usually did.
She wondered at him, and thought it rather foolish in him to be so taken
up with trifles when there was so much to think about. She forgot to be
glad that her brother had found something to keep him from vexing
himself, as he had done so much of late, by thinking how little he could
do for his mother and the rest; and she said to herself that Christie
More had been right when she said that it was upon her that the burden
of care and labour must fall.

"You are tired to-night, Shenac," said Hamish, as she sat gazing
silently and listlessly into the fire.

"Tired!" repeated Shenac scornfully. "What with, I wonder. Yes, I am
tired with staying within-doors, when there is so much to be done
outside. If my mother would only let me take the wheel, that would be
something."

"But my mother is busy with it herself," said Hamish. "Surely you do
not think you can do more or better than my mother?"

"Not better, but more; twice as much in a day as she is doing now.
We'll not get our cloth by the new year, at the rate the spinning is
going on, and the lads' clothes will hardly hold together even now."
Shenac gave an impatient sigh.

"But, Shenac," said her brother, "there is no use in fretting about it;
that will do no good."

"No; if only one could help it," said Shenac.

"Shenac, my woman," said the mother from the other side of the fire, "I
doubt you'll need to go to The Eleventh to-morrow for the dye-stuffs. I
am not able to go so far myself, I fear."

The townships, or towns, of that part of the country are all divided off
into portions, a mile in width, called concessions; and as the little
cluster of houses where the store was had no name as yet, it was called
The Eleventh; and indeed, all the different localities were named from
the concession in which they were found.

"There is no particular hurry about going,