The soutar was still meditating on things spiritual, still reading the
gospel of St. John, still making and mending shoes, and still watching the
development of his daughter, who had begun to unfold what not a few of the
neighbours, with most of whom she was in favour, counted beauty. The farm
labourers in the vicinity were nearly all more or less her admirers, and
many a pair of shoes was carried to her father for the sake of a possible
smile from Maggie; but because of a certain awe that seemed to pervade her
presence, no one had as yet dared a word to her beyond that of greeting or
farewell: each that looked upon her became at once aware of a certain
inferiority. Her beauty seemed to suggest behind it a beauty it was unable
to reveal.

She was rather short in stature, but altogether well proportioned, with a
face wonderfully calm and clear, and quiet but keen dark eyes. Her
complexion owed its white-rose tinge to a strong, gentle life, and its few
freckles to the pale sun of Scotland, for she courted every breeze
bonnetless on the hills, when she accompanied her father in his walks, or
carried home the work he had finished. He rejoiced especially that she
should delight in feeling the wind about her, for he held it to indicate
sympathy with that spirit whose symbol it was, and which he loved to think
of as folding her about, closer and more lovingly than his own cherishing
soul.

Of her own impulse, and almost from the moment of her mother's death, she
had given herself to his service, first in doing all the little duties of
the house, and then, as her strength and faculty grew, in helping him more
and more in his trade. As soon as she had cleared away the few things
necessary for a breakfast of porridge and milk, Maggie would hasten to join
her father where he stooped over his last, for he was a little
shortsighted.