She had a broad, bright, sensible face, and a kindly smile that won me to her.
She wore frilled caps, tied under her chin; and as to exchanging them for "the fly-away bits of things servants stick on their heads at the present time," Elspeth would as soon have thought of abandoning the faith of her fathers.

She was a strict but not bitter Presbyterian.

She was not tall, and she was very broad; her apparent width being increased by the very broad linen collars which spread, almost like a cape, over her ample shoulders.
My great-grandmother had an anecdote of me connected with this, which she was fond of relating.
"And what do you think of Elspeth, little one ?" she had said to me on the first evening of my visit.
"I think she's very big," was my reply.
"Certainly, our good Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," said my great-grandfather, laughing.
I wondered if this were so; and when my great-grandmother gave me a little yard-measure in a wooden castle, which had taken my fancy among the treasures of her work-box, the idea seized me of measuring Elspeth for my own satisfaction on the point.

But the silken measure slipped, and caught on the battlements of the castle, and I lost my place in counting the figures, and at last was fain to ask Elspeth herself.
"How tall are you, Elspeth, please?
As much as a yard ?" "Ou aye, my dear," said Elspeth, who was deeply engaged in darning a very large hole in one of my great-grandfather's socks.
"As much as two yards ?" I inquired.
"Eh, no, my dearie," said Elspeth.

"That wad be six feet; and I'm not just that tall, though my father was six feet and six inches." "How broad are you, Elspeth, please ?" I persisted.