I have myself an opinion that no girl can be really beautiful who is not truly good, whose heart is not imbued with religion and in touch with nature. If the soul, in all truthfulness, does not shine through the eyes, be they brown or be they blue, then, ah! me, beauty is far, far away. And yet many girls now-a-days think that the more closely they approach in figure, face, and complexion to the waxen dummies we see in the windows of hairdressers the prettier they must be. A greater mistake could not be made. Let me say earnestly to every girl who may read these lines, “Cultivate mind and soul if you wish to become beautiful.”
This is a digression, and I apologise for it, and proceed with my true story.
A day or two afterwards, Sandie’s sister came over to the manse, and the mother went home.
Maggie May and she soon became fast friends, and together it was evident they would soon nurse Sandie back to life.
Maggie May possessed a zither, on which, for so young a girl, she played charmingly, singing thereto old Scotch songs, such as “The Flowers of the Forest,” “The Parting,” “Wae’s me for Prince Charlie,” and other Jacobite lilts, that caused the tears to come welling up into Sandie’s eyes till he could see nothing for the mist they produced; for Sandie was still very weak and hysterical.
The minister came daily, twice a day, to see the patient. One day he brought Sandie’s Horace.
“Do you mean to tell me, Sandie,” said the minister, “that you read Latin?”
“Oh, yes, just a little. And a little Greek,” he added.
Mackenzie patted his thin white hand, and looked wonderingly down into his pinched and worn face.
From that moment Sandie knew he had found a friend.