At all events, when he had sent for us, he would ask our version of the affair, and listen to that as he had listened to hers.

Then he would set forth to us where we had been wrong, if we were wrong, and send us away with an injunction not to provoke Mrs.Mitchell, who couldn't help being short in her temper, poor thing! Somehow or other we got it into our heads that the shortness of her temper was mysteriously associated with the shortness of her nose.
She was saving even to stinginess.

She would do her best to provide what my father liked, but for us she thought almost anything good enough.

She would, for instance, give us the thinnest of milk--we said she skimmed it three times before she thought it blue enough for us.
My two younger brothers did not mind it so much as I did, for I was always rather delicate, and if I took a dislike to anything, would rather go without than eat or drink of it.

But I have told you enough about her to make it plain that she could be no favourite with us; and enough likewise to serve as a background to my description of Kirsty.
Kirsty was a Highland woman who had the charge of the house in which the farm servants lived.