Margaret would obey her mother instantly, but with a look of silent
expostulation which her mother could not resist; sometimes, perhaps,
if the words were sharper than usual, with symptoms of gathering
tears; upon which Janet would say, with her honest smile of sweet
relenting,

"Hootoots, bairn! never heed me. My bark's aye waur nor my bite; ye
ken that."

Then Margaret's face would brighten at once, and she would work hard
at whatever her mother set her to do, till it was finished; upon
which her mother would be more glad than she, and in no haste to
impose any further labour out of the usual routine.

In the course of reading Wordsworth, Margaret had frequent occasion
to apply to Hugh for help. These occasions, however, generally
involved no more than small external difficulties, which prevented
her from taking in the scope of a passage. Hugh was always able to
meet these, and Margaret supposed that the whole of the light which
flashed upon her mind when they were removed, was poured upon the
page by the wisdom of her tutor; never dreaming--such was her
humility with regard to herself, and her reverence towards him--that
it came from the depths of her own lucent nature, ready to perceive
what the poet came prepared to show. Now and then, it is true, she
applied to him with difficulties in which he was incapable of aiding
her; but she put down her failure in discovering the meaning, after
all which it must be confessed he sometimes tried to say, to her own
stupidity or peculiarity--never to his incapacity. She had been
helped to so much by his superior acquirements, and his real gift
for communicating what he thoroughly understood; he had been so