. . . .
One day when we were walking through the little village of Strathdee

we turned the corner of a quiet side street and came suddenly upon
something altogether strange and unexpected.

A stone cottage of the everyday sort stood a trifle back from the
road and bore over its front door a sign announcing that Mrs. Bruce,

Flesher, carried on her business within; and indeed one could look
through the windows and see ruddy joints hanging from beams, and

piles of pink-and-white steaks and chops lying neatly on the
counter, crying, `Come, eat me!' Nevertheless, one's first glance

would be arrested neither by Mrs Bruce's black-and-gold sign, nor by
the enticements of her stock-in-trade, because one's attention is

rapped squarely between the eyes by an astonishing shape that arises
from the patch of lawn in front of the cottage, and completely

dominates the scene. Imagine yourself face to face with the last
thing you would expect to see in a modest front dooryard,--the

figurehead of a ship, heroic in size, gorgeous in colour, majestic
in pose! A femalepersonage it appears to be from the drapery,

which is the only key the artist furnishes as to sex, and a queenly
femalewithal, for she wears a crown at least a foot high, and

brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this seen from the front, but
the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the

tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a
brittle sort, as it has evidently been thrice broken and glued

together.
Mrs Bruce did not leave us long in suspense, but obligingly came

out, partly to comment on the low price of mutton and partly to tell
the tale of the mammoth mermaid. By rights, of course, Mrs. Bruce's

husband should have been the gallant captain of a bark which
foundered at sea and sent every man to his grave on the ocean-bed.

The ship's figurehead should have been discovered by some miracle,
brought to the sorrowing widow, and set up in the garden in eternal

remembrance of the dear departed. This was the story in my mind,
but as a matter of fact the rude effigy was wrought by Mrs. Bruce's

father for a ship to be called the Sea Queen, but by some mischance,
ship and figurehead never came together, and the old wood-carver

left it to his daughter, in lieu of other property. It has not been
wholly unproductive, Mrs. Bruce fancies, for the casual passers-by,

like those who came to scoff and remained to pray, go into the shop
to ask questions about the Sea Queen and buy chops out of courtesy

and gratitude.
. . . .

On our way to the bakery, which is a daily walk with us, we always
glance at a little cot in a grassy lane just off the fore street.

In one half of this humbledwelling Mrs. Davidson keeps a slender
stock of shop-worn articles,--pins, needles, threads, sealing-wax,

pencils, and sweeties for the children, all disposed attractively
upon a single shelf behind the window.

Across the passage, close to the other window, sits day after day an
old woman of eight-six summers who has lost her kinship with the

present and gone back to dwell for ever in the past. A small table
stands in front of her rush-bottomed chair, the old family Bible

rests upon it, and in front of the Bible are always four tiny dolls,
with which the trembling old fingers play from morning till night.

They are cheap, common little puppets, but she robes and disrobes
them with tenderest care. They are put to bed upon the Bible, take

their walks along its time-worn pages, are married on it, buried on
it, and the direst punishment they ever receive is to be removed

from its sacred covers and temporarilyhidden beneath the dear old
soul's black alpaca apron. She is quite happy with her treasures on

week-days; but on Sundays--alas and alas! the poor old dame sits in
her lonely chair with the furtive tears dropping on her wrinkled

cheeks, for it is a God-fearing household, and it is neither lawful
nor seemly to play with dolls on the Sawbath!

. . . .
Mrs. Nicolson is the presiding genius of the bakery, she is more--

she is the bakery itself. A Mr. Nicolson there is, and he is known
to be the baker, but he dwells in the regions below the shop and

only issues at rare intervals, beneath the friendly shelter of a
huge tin tray filled with scones and baps.

If you saw Mrs. Nicolson's kitchen with the firelight gleaming on
its bright copper, its polished candlesticks, and its snowy floor,

you would think her an admirablehousewife, but you would get no
clue to those shrewd and masterful traits of character which reveal

themselves chiefly behind the counter.
Miss Grieve had purchased of Mrs. Nicolson a quarter section of very

appetising ginger-cake to eat with our afternoon tea, and I stepped
in to buy more. She showed me a large round loaf for two shillings.

"No," I objected, "I cannot use a whole loaf, thank you. We eat
very little at a time, and like it perfectly fresh. I wish a small

piece such as my maid bought the other day."
Then ensued a discourse which I cannot render in the vernacular,

more's the pity, though I understood it all too well for my comfort.
The substance of it was this: that she couldna and wouldna tak' it

in hand to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three-
quarters might gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the

small piece on the former occasion was that her daughter, her son-
in-law, and their three children came from Ballahoolish to visit

her, and she gave them a high tea with no expense spared; that at
this function they devoured three-fourths of a ginger-cake, and just

as she was mournfully regarding the remainder my servant came in and
took it off her hands; that she had kept a bakery for thirty years

and her mother before her, and never had a two-shilling ginger-cake
been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely ever to occur again;

that if I, under Providence, so to speak, had been the fortunate
gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six penny-worth in solemn

gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to happen the
next week? And finally, that two-shilling ginger-cakes were, in the

very nature of things, designed for large families; and it was the
part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on

something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a
rare and expensive article for a small customer.

The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take
the whole loaf.

"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly;
no, I couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger-

cake and let one-and-sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery.--A
beautiful day, mam! Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open

your umbrella for you, mam!"
. . . .

David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw. All day long he sits at his
old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the

dear old greybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone.
He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where

would he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble
trade now banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten

things?
His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works

is big enough to hold a deal of sweet content. It is cheery enough,
too, to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit

on the floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of coloured
ravellings. Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and

prudent little virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of
pink and yellow and blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on

the long deal table.
All this time the `heddles' go up and down, up and down, with their

ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he
weaves his old-fashioned winceys.

We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been
permitted the signal honour of painting him at his work.

The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine
filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty