occasional sojourn in the house of her uncle, the Rev. Dr. Edwards, a
minister of the United Presbyterian Church in Glasgow, where that
venerable soldier of the cross still lingers, as if halfway betwixt
the Church militant and the Church triumphant But whether in the
father's house or in the uncle's manse, kind and truthful speech was
the coin current, a good example the domestic stock-in-trade, and an
interchange of cheerful, loving service the main business. It was a
quiet school, whose very hum was peaceful; and yet the schooling was
thorough; things strong often grow as quietly as things feeble. The
oak rises as silently in the forest as the lily in the garden. Strong
characters, too, under any conditions of life, school themselves much
more than they are schooled. Active, inquisitive, resolute, and
possessing a fair share of the national _perfervidum ingenium_,
not without some tincture of those elements of the Scottish character
known as the "canny" and the "dour," our worker early developed that
robust vigour of mind and body which has so long stood the wear and
tear of severely trying work.

One passage of significance in the family history deserves notice,
especially as suggesting a peculiar feature in her early training and
supplying a link in the chain of providential events. In work among
the young her father was an enthusiast. With a heart bigger than her
own family circle, her mother took in two orphans to foster and rear.
Thus in the work of caring for the outcast and the forlorn Annie
Macpherson was "to the manner born." Inheriting her father's
enthusiasm and her mother's sympathetic nature, the quick-witted,
warm-hearted girl would not fail to note the equal footing enjoyed by
the stranger children, and would know the reason why: the much tact
employed to keep the new and difficult relations sweet would engage
her attention; and the exceeding tenderness with which the motherless