soul save what was contained in the house--from Tammas, the chief
article of furniture, down, through the mahogany table, to the
porridge-pot; clouting, mending, darning, cleaning, scouring, washing,
scraping, wringing, drying, roasting, boiling, stewing, being all of
them done with such duty, love, and intensity of purpose, that they were
veritable sacrifices to the _lares_. This was doubtless a virtue; and as
doubtless it was a vice, insomuch as, if we believe another old Greek
pedagogue of the name of Aristotle, "all virtues are medial vices, and
all vices extreme virtues." How Tammas viewed this question may also
appear. But we may proceed to state, that Mrs. Janet Dodds was not
content with doing all those things with such severity of love or duty.
She was always telling herself what she intended to do, either at the
moment or afterwards. "This pan needs to be scoured." "Thae stockings
maun be darned." "This sark is as black as the lum, and maun be
plotted." "The floor needs scrubbing." "Tammas's coat is crying, 'A
steek in time saves nine,' and by my faith it says true;" and so on. Nor
did it signify much whether Thomas or any other person was in the house
at the time--the words were not intended for anybody but herself; and to
herself she persisted in telling them with a stedfastness which only the
ears of a whitesmith could tolerate; even with the consideration that he
was not, as so many are, deaved with scandal--a delectation which Janet
despised, if she did not care as little for what was going on
domestically within the house on the top of the same stair, as she did
for the in-door affairs of Japan or Tobolsk. We may mention, also, that
she persevered in reading the same chapter of the Bible, and in singing
the same psalm, every Sunday morning. In addition to these
characteristics, Janet made it a point never to change the form or
colour of her dress; so that if all the women in Edinburgh had been of
her taste and mode of thinking, all the colours by which they are
diversified and made interesting would have been reduced to the dead