"I like them best that gar ye greit, sir."
At every answer, she looked up in his face with her open clear blue
eyes. And the minister began to love her not merely because she was a
child, but because she was this child.
"Do ye sing them?" he asked, after a little pause of pleased gazing
into the face of the child.
"Na, na; I only say them. I dinna ken the tunes o' them."
"And do you say them to Mr Bruce?"
"Mr Bruce, sir! Mr Bruce wad say I was daft. I wadna say a sang to him,
sir, for--for--for a' the sweeties i' the shop."
"Well, who do you say them to?"
"To Alec Forbes and Willie Macwha. They're biggin a boat, sir; and they
like to hae me by them, as they big, to say sangs to them. And I like
it richt weel."
"It'll be a lucky boat, surely," said the minister, "to rise to the
sound of rhyme, like some old Norse war-ship."
"I dinna ken, sir," said Annie, who certainly did not know what he
meant.
Now the minister's acquaintance with any but the classic poets was very
small indeed; so that, when he got up and stood before his
book-shelves, with the design of trying what he could do for her, he
could think of nobody but Milton.
So he brought the _Paradise Lost_ from its place, where it had not been
disturbed for years, and placing it before her on the table, for it was
a quarto copy, asked her if that would do.
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