Yet he took in this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small, well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a tip on it, that peeped out below her frock.

Critics might have hinted that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many who have gone farther afield in the world than the young minister of Drumtochty.
Carmichael was at that age when a man prides himself on dressing and thinking as he pleases, and had quite scandalised a Muirtown elder--a stout gentleman, who had come out in '43, and could with difficulty be weaned from Dr.Chalmers--by making his appearance on the preceding evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel shirt.

He explained casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly.

His host was at a loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very impressive way, and seasoning the principles of the Free Kirk with snuff of an excellent fragrance.

It was hard even for the most generous charity to identify the spirit of the Disruption in such a figure, and the good elder grew so proper and so didactic that Carmichael went from bad to worse.
"Well, you would find the congregation in excellent order.