A Professor of Memory had appeared at the Muckley, and Miss Ailie admits having given him half-a-crown to explain his system to her.  But when he was gone she could not remember whether you multiplied everything by ten before dividing by five and subtracting a hundred, or began by dividing and doing something underhand with the cube root.  Then Mr. Dishart, who had a microscope, wanted his boy to be taught science, and several experiments were described at length in the book, one of them dealing with a penny, H, and a piston, X Y, and you do things to the piston “and then the penny comes to the surface.”  “But it never does,” Miss Ailie wrote sorrowfully; perhaps she was glad when Master Dishart was sent to another school.

“Though I teach the girls the pianoforte I find that I cannot stretch my fingers as I used to do.  Kitty used to take the music, and I often remember this suddenly when superintending a lesson.  It is a pain to me that so many wish to acquire ‘The Land o’ the Leal,’ which Kitty sang so often to I——­ M——­ at Magenta Cottage.”

Even the French, of which Miss Ailie had once been very proud, was slipping from her.  “Kitty and I kept up our French by translating I——­ M——­’s letters and comparing our versions, but now that this stimulus is taken away I find that I am forgetting my French.  Or is it only that I am growing old? too old to keep school?” This dread was beginning to haunt Miss Ailie, and the pages between which the blotting-paper lay revealed that she had written to the editor of the Mentor asking up to what age he thought a needy gentlewoman had a right to teach.  The answer was not given, but her comment on it told everything.  “I asked him to be severely truthful, so that I cannot resent his reply.  But if I take his advice, how am I to live?  And if I do not take it, I fear I am but a stumbling-block in the way of true education.”

That is a summary of what Mr. McLean read in the blue and white book; remember, you were warned not to expect much.  And Tommy and Gavinia listened, and Tommy said, “I hear no laughing,” and Gavinia answered, “But he has quieted down,” and upstairs Miss Ailie was on her knees.  A time came when Mr. McLean could find something to laugh at in that little pass-book, but it was not then, not even when he reached the end.  He left something on the last page instead.  At least I think it must have been he:  Miss Ailie’s tears could not have been so long a-drying.

You may rise, now, Miss Ailie; your prayer is granted.

CHAPTER XXVI

TOMMY REPENTS, AND IS NONE THE WORSE FOR IT

Mr. McLean wrote a few reassuring words to Miss Ailie, and having told Gavinia to give the note to her walked quietly out of the house; he was coming back after he had visited Miss Kitty’s grave.  Gavinia, however, did not knew this, and having delivered the note she returned dolefully to the kitchen to say to Tommy, “His letter maun have been as thraun as himsel’, for as soon as she read it, down she plumped on her knees again.”