If the company was another minister, she would take a chair and discuss Mr.Dishart's infirmities with him.

The Auld Lichts loved their minister, but they saw even more clearly than himself the necessity for his humiliation.

His wife made all her children's clothes, but Sanders Gow complained that she looked too like their sister.

In one week three of the children died, and on the Sabbath following it rained.

Mr.Dishart preached, twice breaking down altogether and gaping strangely round the kirk (there was no dust flying that day), and spoke of the rain as angels' tears for three little girls.