it _the town_. There a sister of her father lived, and with her she was
welcome to spend the night, so that she was able to go in most
weathers. But when she staid there, her evening was mostly spent at the
schoolmaster's.

Mr. Craig was an elderly man, who had married late, and lost his wife
early. She had left him one child, a delicate, dainty, golden-haired
thing, considerably younger than Kirsty, who cherished for her a love
and protection quite maternal. Kirsty was one of the born mothers, who
are not only of the salt, but are the sugar and shelter of the world. I
doubt if little Phemie would have learned anything but for Kirsty. Not
to the day of her death did her father see in her anything but the
little girl his wife had left him. He spoiled her a good deal, nor ever
set himself to instruct her, leaving it apparently to the tendency of
things to make of her a woman like her mother.

He was a real student and excellent teacher. When first he came as
schoolmaster to Tiltowie, he was a divinity student, but a man so far
of thought original that he saw lions in the way of becoming a
minister. Such men as would be servants of the church before they are
slaves of the church's Master will never be troubled with Mr. Craig's
difficulties. For one thing, his strong poetic nature made it
impossible for him to believe in a dull, prosaic God: when told that
God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, he found himself unable to
imagine them inferior to ours. The natural result was that he remained
a schoolmaster--to the advantage of many a pupil, and very greatly to
the advantage of Kirsty, whose nature was peculiarly open to his
influences. The dominie said he had never had a pupil that gave him
such satisfaction as Kirsty; she seemed to anticipate and catch at
everything he wanted to make hers. There was no knowledge, he declared,