--it
was given to Agnes Anne to say suddenly, "Let me go to Marnhoul,
grandmother!" If Balaam's ass (or say, Crazy), had spoken these words,
grandmother could not have been more astonished.

More so still when John MacAlpine nodded approval.

"Yes, let the lassie go--let her put her hand to the work. The burden
cannot be too soon laid on young shoulders--that is, if they are strong
enough."

Mary Lyon stared, as if both he and his daughter had suddenly taken
leave of their senses.

"Why, what can the lassie _do_?" she cried; "I thought you were making
her nothing but a don in the dead languages!"

"I can bake, and brew, and wash, and keep a house clean," said Agnes
Anne, putting in her testimonials, since there was no one so well
acquainted with them. My father nodded. He was not so blind as many
might suppose. My mother said, "Aye, 'deed, she can that. Agnes Anne is
a good lass. I know not what I should do without her!"

My grandmother looked about at the new air of tidiness, and for the
first time a suspicion crossed her mind that, out of a pit from which
she was expecting no such treasure, some one in her own image might
possibly have been digged among her descendants of the second
generation. She looked at Agnes Anne with a ray of hope. Agnes Anne
stood the awful searching power of that eye. Agnes Anne did not flinch.
Mary Lyon nodded her head with its man's close-cropped locks of rough
white hair in lyart locks about her ears.

"You'll do, Agnes Anne, you'll do," she said, adding cautiously, "that
is, after a time"--so as not to exalt the girl above measure. It was,
however, recognized by all as a definite triumph for my sister. My
grandmother, a rigid Calvinist, who believed in Election with all her
intellect, and acted Free Will with all her heart, elected Agnes Anne
upon the spot. Had the girl not willed to rise out of the pit of sloth
and mere human learning? And lo! she had arisen. Thenceforth Agnes Anne
stood on a pedestal, and for a while one sturdy disciple of Calvin's
thought heretically of the pure doctrine. Here was a human being who had
willed, and, according to my grandmother, had made of herself a miracle
of grace.

But she recalled herself to more orthodox sentiments. The steel was out
of the sheath, indeed, but it had to be tried. Even yet Agnes Anne might
be found wanting.

"When will you be ready to start?" she said, turning her black twinkling
eyes upon her granddaughter.

"In five