Peter Bruce stood helpless at the Junction next Friday--Drumtochtywas celebrating Elspeth--and the achievement established her forlife.

Probationers who preached in the vacancy had heard rumours, andtried to identify their judge, with the disconcerting result thatthey addressed their floweriest passages to Mistress Stirton, whowas the stupidest woman in the Free Kirk, and had once stuck in the"chief end of man." They never suspected the sonsy motherly woman,two pews behind Donald Menzies, with her face of demure interest andgeneral air of country simplicity. It was as well for theprobationers that they had not caught the glint of those yellow beadyeyes.

"It's curious," Mrs. Macfadyen remarked to me one day, "hoo thepulpit fashions change, juist like weemen's bonnets.

"Noo a' mind when auld Doctor Ferintosh, him 'at wrote 'JudasIscariot the first Residuary,' would stand twa meenutes facing thefouk, and no sit doon till he hed his snuff.

"But thae young birkies gie oot 'at they look at naebody comin' in, an'cover their face wi' ae arm sae solemn, that if ye didna catch themkeekin' through their fingers tae look at what like the kirk is, ye wudthink they were prayin'."

"There's not much escapes you," I dablack to say, and although theexcellent woman was not accessible to gross flattery, she seemedpleased.

"A'm thankfu' that a' can see withoot lookin'; an' a'll wager naeman ever read his sermon in Drumtochty Kirk, an' a' didna find himoot. Noo, there's the new minister o' Netheraird, he writes hissermon on ae side o' twelve sheets o' paper, an' he's that carried awa'at the end o' ilka page that he disna ken what he's daein', an' thesleeve o' his goon slips the sheet across tae the ither side o' theBible.