“How backward!”

“Then she knows all her letters by sight—­almost all, and Ermine can never get him to tell b from d; and you know how she can repeat so many little verses, while he could not even say, ’Thank you, pretty cow,’ this morning, when I wanted to hear him.”

“Vast interval!”

“It is only eight months; but then Una is such a bright, forward child.”

“Highly-developed precocity!”

“Now, Alick, what am I about?  Why are you agreeing with me?”

“I am between the horns of a dilemma.  Either our young chieftain must be a dunce, or we are rearing the Clever Woman of the family.”

“I hope not!” exclaimed Rachel.

“Indeed?  I would not grudge her a superior implement, even if I had sometimes cut my own fingers.”

“But, Alick, I really do not think I ever was such a Clever Woman.”

“I never thought you one,” he quietly returned.

She smiled.  This faculty had much changed her countenance.  “I see,” she said, thoughtfully, “I had a few intellectual tastes, and liked to think and read, which was supposed to be cleverness; and my wilfulness made me fancy myself superior in force of character, in a way I could never have imagined if I had lived more in the world.  Contact with really clever people has shown me that I am slow and unready.”

“It was a rusty implement, and you tried weight instead of edge.  Now it is infinitely brighter.”

“But, Alick,” she said, leaving the thought of herself for that of her child, “I believe you may be right about Una, for,” she added in low voice, “she is like the most practically clever person I ever saw.”

“True,” he answered gravely, “I see it every day, in every saucy gesture and coaxing smile, when she tries to turn away displeasure in her naughty fits.  I hardly knew how to look on at her airs with Keith, it was so exactly like the little sister I first knew.  Rachel, such cleverness as that is a far more perilous gift to woman than your plodding intellectuality could ever be.  God grant,” he added, with one of the effusions which sometimes broke through his phlegmatic temperament, “that this little fellow may be a kinder, wiser brother than ever I was, and that we may bring her up to your own truth and unselfishness.  Then such power would be a happy endowment.”

“Yes,” said Rachel, “may she never be out of your influence, or be left to untrustworthy hands.  I should have been much better if I had had either father or brother to keep me in order.  Poor child, she has a wonderful charm, not all my fancy, Alick.  And yet there is one whose real working talent has been more than that of any of us, who has made it effective for herself and others, and has let it do her only good, not harm.”

“You are right.  If we are to show Una how intellect and brilliant power can be no snares, but only blessings helping the spirits in infirmity and trouble, serving as a real engine for independence and usefulness, winning love and influence for good, genuine talents in the highest sense of the word, then commend me to such a Clever Woman of the family as Ermine Keith.”