blood horse and healthy as the hill wind. High in flesh and voice and

colour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle,

not without buffets. Scarce more pious than decency in those days

required, she was the cause of many an anxious thought and many a

tearful prayer to Mrs. Weir. Housekeeper and mistress renewed the parts

of Martha and Mary; and though with a pricking conscience, Mary reposed

on Martha's strength as on a rock. Even Lord Hermiston held Kirstie in

a particular regard. There were few with whom he unbent so gladly, few

whom he favoured with so many pleasantries. "Kirstie and me maun have

our joke," he would declare in high good-humour, as he buttered

Kirstie's scones, and she waited at table. A man who had no need either

of love or of popularity, a keen reader of men and of events, there was

perhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he would have

been quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated him. He thought maid

and master were well matched; hard, bandy, healthy, broad Scots folk,

without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them. And the fact was that

she made a goddess and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; and

even as she waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for my lord's

ears.

Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermiston, not only my lord, but

Mrs. Weir too, enjoyed a holiday. Free from the dreadful looking-for of

the miscarried dinner, she would mind her seam, read her piety books,

and take her walk (which was my lord's orders), sometimes by herself,

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