eek? And
finally, that two-shilling ginger cakes were, in the very nature of
things, designed for large families; and it was the part of wisdom for
small families to fix their affections on something else, for she
couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a rare and expensive
article for a small customer.

The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take the
whole loaf.

"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly; no,
I couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger cake
and let one and sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery--A beautiful day,
mam! Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for
you, mam!"

* * * * *

David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw. All day long he sits at his
old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the
dear old graybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone.

He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where would
he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble trade
now banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten things?

His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works is
big enough to hold a deal of sweet content. It is cheery enough, too,
to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit on the
floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of colored ravelings.
Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little
virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow
and blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on the long deal
table.

All this time the "heddles" go up and down, up and down, with their
ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he
weaves his old-fashioned winseys.

We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been
permitted the signal honor of painting him at his work.

The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine
filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty
window-panes, and throws a halo round David's head that he well
deserves and little suspects. In my foreground sit Meg and Jean and
Elspeth playing with thrums and wearing the fruit of David's loom in
their gingham frocks. David himself sits on his wooden bench behind
the maze of cords that form the "loom harness."

The snows of seventy winters powder his hair and beard. His spectacles
are o