flannel petticoat, carried across a sanded kitchen floor and laid
on a warm hearth.

"Doon wi' ye!" was the gruff order. Bobby turned around and
around on the hearth, like some little wild dog making a bed in
the jungle, before he obeyed. He kept very still during the
reading of a chapter and the singing of a Psalm, as he had been
taught to do at the farm by many a reminder from Auld Jock's
boot. And he kept away from the breakfast-table, although the
walls of his stomach were collapsed as flat as the sides of an
empty pocket.

It was such a clean, shining little kitchen, with the scoured
deal table, chairs and cupboard, and the firelight from the grate
winked so on pewter mugs, copper kettle, willow-patterned plates
and diamond panes, that Bobby blinked too. Flowers bloomed in
pots on the casement sills, and a little brown skylark sang,
fluttering as if it would soar, in a gilded cage. After the
morning meal Mr. Brown lighted his pipe and put on his bonnet to
go out again, when he bethought him that Bobby might be needing
something to eat.

"What'll ye gie 'im, Jeanie? At the laird's, noo, the terriers
were aye fed wi' bits o' livers an' cheese an' moor fowls' eggs,
an' sic-like, fried."

"Havers, Jamie, it's no' releegious to feed a dog better than
puir bairns. He'll do fair weel wi' table-scraps."

She set down a plate with a spoonful of porridge on it, a cold