To attend the parish church and remember the text; to observe who was there and who was not there; and to wind up the evening with a sermon stuttered and stammered through by one of the girls (the worst reader always piously selected, for the purpose of improving their reading), an particularly addressed to the Laird, openly and avowedly snoring in his arm-chair, though at every pause starting up with a peevish “Weel?”—­this was the sum total of their religious duties.  Their moral virtues were much upon the same scale; to knit stockings, scold servants, cement china, trim bonnets, lecture the poor, and look up to Lady Maclaughlan, comprise nearly their whole code.  But these were the virtues of ripened years and enlarged understandings—­which their pupils might hope to arrive at, but could not presume to meddle with. Their merits consisted in being compelled to sew certain large portions of white-work; learning to read and write in the worst manner; occasionally wearing a collar, and learning the notes on the spinnet.  These acquirements, accompanied with a great deal of lecturing and fault-finding, sufficed for the first fifteen years; when the two next, passed at a provincial boarding-school, were supposed to impart every graceful accomplishment to which women could attain.

Mrs. Douglas’s method of conveying instruction, it may easily be imagined, did not square with their ideas on that subject.  They did nothing themselves without a bustle, and to do a thing quietly was to them the same as not doing it at all—­it could not be done, for nobody had ever heard of it.  In short, like many other worthy people, their ears were their only organs of intelligence.  They believed everything they were told; but unless they were told, they believed nothing.  They had never heard Mrs. Douglas expatiate on the importance of the trust reposed in her, or enlarge on the difficulties of female education; ergo, Mrs. Douglas could have no idea of the nature of the duties she had undertaken.

Their visits to Lochmarlie only served to confirm the fact.  Miss Jacky deponed that during the month she was there she never could discover when or how it was that Mary got her lessons; luckily the child was quick, and had contrived, poor thing, to pick up things wonderfully, nobody knew how, for it was really astonishing to see how little pains were bestowed upon her and the worst of it was, that she seemed to do just as she liked, for nobody ever heard her reproved, and everybody knew that young people never could have enough said to them.  All this differed widely from the eclat of their system, and could not fail of causing great disquiet to the sisters.

“I declare I’m quite confounded at all this!” said Miss Grizzy, at the conclusion of Miss Jacky’s communication.  “It really appears as if Mary, poor thing, was getting no education at all; and yet she can do things, too.  I can’t understand it; and it’s very odd in Mrs. Douglas to allow her to be so much neglected, for certainly Mary’s constantly with herself; which, to be sure, shows that she is very much spoilt; for although our girls are as fond of us as I am sure any creatures can be, yet, at the same time, they are always very glad—­which is quite natural—­to runaway from us.”