‘Ay, dearie,’ she would say, ’it is not much to look back upon except in an angel’s sight,—­a poor old woman’s life, who worked and struggled to keep her master and children from clemming.  I used to think it hard sometimes that I could not get to church on Sunday morning,—­for I was aye a woman for church,—­but I had to stand at my wash-tub often until late on Saturday night.  “After a day’s charing, rinsing out the children’s bits of things, and ironing them too, how is a poor tired body like me to get religion?” I would say sometimes when I was fairly moithered with it all.  But, Miss Garston, my dear, I’m glad, as I lie here, to know that I never neglected the children God had given me; and so He took care of all that; He knew when I was too tired to put up a prayer that it was not for the want of loving Him.’

’No, indeed, Elspeth.  I often think we ought not to be too hard on poor people.’

‘That’s true,’ brightening up visibly.  ’He is no severe taskmaster demanding bricks out of stubble; He knows poor labouring people are often tired, and out of heart.  I used to say to my master sometimes, “Ah well, we must leave all that for heaven; we shall have a fine rest there, and plenty of time to sing our hymns and talk to the Lord Jesus.  He was a labouring man too, and He will know all about it.”  I often comforted my master like that.’

Elspeth’s quaint talk interested me greatly.  I grew to love her dearly, and I liked to feel that she was fond of me in return.  I could have sat by her contentedly for hours, holding her hard work-worn hand and listening to her gentle flow of talk with its Scriptural phrases and simple realistic thoughts.  It was like washing some pilgrim’s feet at a feast to listen to Elspeth.

One evening she told me that she had been thinking of me.

‘I wanted to know what you were like, my bairn,’ she said, with her pretty Scotch accent; ’and the doctor came in as I was turning it over in my mind, so I made bold to ask him to describe you.  I thought he was a long time answering, and at last he said, “What put that into your head, granny?” as if he were a little bit taken aback by the question.

’"Well, doctor,” I returned, “we all of us like to see the faces of those we love; and I am all in the dark.  That dear young lady is doing the Lord’s work with all her might, and she has a voice that makes me think of heaven, and the choirs of angels, and the golden harps, and maybe her face is as beautiful as her voice.”

’"Oh no,” he says quite sharply to that, “she is not beautiful at all:  indeed, I am not sure that most people would not think her plain.”

’I suppose I was an old ninny, but I did not like to hear him say this, my bairn, for I knew it could not be the truth; but he went on after a minute,—­

’"It is not easy to describe the face of a person one knows so well.  I find it difficult to answer your question.  Miss Garston has such a true face, one seems to trust it in a minute:  it is the face of an honest kindly woman who will never do you any harm;” and then I saw what he meant.  Why, bairn, the angels have this sort of beauty, and it lasts the longest; that is the sort of face they have there.’