g dressed on her bed,
exclaimed:

"Ow! ye call dress yersel! can ye?"

"Ay, weel that," answered Annie, as cheerily as she could. "But," she
added, "I want some water to wash mysel' wi'."

"Come doon to the pump, than," said Mrs Bruce.

Annie followed her to the pump, where she washed in a tub. She then ran
dripping into the house for a towel, and was dried by the hands of Mrs
Bruce in her dirty apron.--This mode of washing lasted till the first
hoar-frost, after which there was a basin to be had in the kitchen,
with plenty of water and not much soap.

By this time breakfast was nearly ready, and in a few minutes more, Mrs
Bruce called Mr Bruce from the shop, and the children from the yard,
and they all sat round the table in the kitchen--Mr Bruce to his tea
and oat-cake and butter--Mrs Bruce and the children to badly-made
oatmeal porridge and sky-blue milk. This quality of the milk was
remarkable, seeing they had cows of their own. But then they sold milk.
And if any customer had accused her of watering it, Mrs Bruce's best
answer would have been to show how much better what she sold was than
what she retained; for she put twice as much water in what she used for
her own family--with the exception of the portion destined for her
husband's tea, whose two graces were long and strong enough for a
better breakfast. But then his own was good enough.

There were three children, two boys with great jaws--the elder rather
older than Annie--and a very little baby. After Mr Bruce had prayed for
the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon their food, they gobbled down
their breakfasts with all noises except articulate ones. When they had
finished--that is, eaten everything up--the Bible was brought; a psalm
was sung, after a fashion not very extraordinary to the ears of Annie,
or, indeed, of any one brought up in Scotland; a chapter was read--it
happened to tell the story of Jacob's speculations in the money-market
of his day and generation; and the _exercise_ concluded with a prayer
of a quarter of an hour, in which the God of Jacob especially was
invoked to bless the Bruces, His servants, in their basket and in their
store, and to prosper the labours of that day in particular. The prayer
would have been longer, but for the click of the latch of the
shop-door, which brought it to a speedier close than one might have
supposed even Mr Bruce's notions of decency would have permitted. And
almost before the _Amen_ was out of his mont