for so long. It was not anything for himself, or even for Jean, as
might have been expected. Somebody had once told him that if his
grandmother only had an ear-trumpet she would be able to hear people
when they spoke to her. Geordie had the vaguest idea of what such an
instrument might be like, but decided that probably it bore some
resemblance in size or sound to the horn that summoned his cows home;
and having ascertained how much money it would cost, he resolved that he
would buy one for his granny whenever he could save the sum.

The boy's heart was full of tender pity for the old deaf woman, with her
weird helpless ways, at whose side he had grown since his infancy;
though she could hardly have been said to "bring him up," for Granny
Baxter had been shiftless and unlovable when she was in possession of
her faculties, and her character had not improved under her trying
infirmities. Her grandson, however, always treated her with a tender
patience which no querulousness of the old woman could weary. Not so
little Jean. Only once she could remember her brother looking very grave
and grieved, and it was one day when she had refused to do something
that the old woman wanted, and put her in a white heat of passion by her
rebellion. Having escaped beyond the reach of her poor granny's
tottering feet, and, finding her way to the field where Geordie was
herding, she began to narrate her story in triumph, when her brother's
grave silence made her feel how naughty she had been. After that day
little Jean always tried to "mind" granny more, though she never
attained to the same unwearied service as Geordie.

That Jean's education was being sadly neglected her brother felt
painfully, and he had made various efforts to teach her the little he
knew himself; but the knowledge contained in the "Third Primer" barely
sufficed for teaching purposes, and Geordie found, moreover, that the