the aunt, who had too much of the family failing herself to appreciate
it thoroughly in others. But as time went on, Archie began to observe
an omission in the family chronicle.

"Is there not a girl too?" he asked.

"Ay: Kirstie. She was named for me, or my grandmother at least - it's
the same thing," returned the aunt, and went on again about Dand, whom
she secretly preferred by reason of his gallantries.

"But what is your niece like?" said Archie at the next opportunity.

"Her? As black's your hat! But I dinna suppose she would maybe be what
you would ca' ILL-LOOKED a'thegither. Na, she's a kind of a handsome
jaud - a kind o' gipsy," said the aunt, who had two sets of scales for
men and women - or perhaps it would be more fair to say that she had
three, and the third and the most loaded was for girls.

"How comes it that I never see her in church?" said Archie.

" 'Deed, and I believe she's in Glesgie with Clem and his wife. A heap
good she's like to get of it! I dinna say for men folk, but where
weemen folk are born, there let them bide. Glory to God, I was never
far'er from here than Crossmichael."

In the meanwhile it began to strike Archie as strange, that while she
thus sang the praises of her kinsfolk, and manifestly relished their
virtues and (I may say) their vices like a thing creditable to herself,
there should appear not the least sign of cordiality between the house
of Hermiston and that of Cauldstaneslap. Going to church of a Sunday,