pale that they suggested some horrible sight as having driven from
them hue and vision together.

"Haf you eated enough, my son?" he said, when he heard Malcolm lay
down his spoon.

"Ay, plenty, thank ye, daddy, and they were richt weel made,"
replied the lad, whose mode of speech was entirely different from
his grandfather's: the latter had learned English as a foreign
language, but could not speak Scotch, his mother tongue being
Gaelic.

As they rose from the table, a small girl, with hair wildly
suggestive of insurrection and conflagration, entered, and said,
in a loud screetch--"Maister MacPhail, my mither wants a pot o'
bleckin', an' ye're to be sure an' gie her't gweed, she says."

"Fery coot, my chilt, Jeannie; but young Malcolm and old Tuncan
hasn't made teir prayers yet, and you know fery well tat she won't
sell pefore she's made her prayers. Tell your mother tat she'll pe
bringin' ta blackin' when she comes to look to ta lamp."

The child ran off without response. Malcolm lifted the pot from
the table and set it on the hearth; put the plates together and the
spoons, and set them on a chair, for there was no dresser; tilted
the table, and wiped it hearthward--then from a shelf took down
and laid upon it a bible, before which he seated himself with an air
of reverence. The old man sat down on a low chair by the chimney
corner, took off his bonnet, closed his eyes and murmured some
almost inaudible words; then repeated in Gaelic the first line of