Dodds, like her of Auchtermuchty, or Mrs. Grumlie, carried domesticity
to devotion, scarcely anything in the world having any interest to her
soul save what was contained in the house--from Tammas, the chief
article of furniture, down, through the mahogany table, to the
porridge-pot; clouting, mending, darning, cleaning, scouring, washing,
scraping, wringing, drying, roasting, boiling, stewing, being all of
them done with such duty, love, and intensity of purpose, that they were
veritable sacrifices to the _lares_. This was doubtless a virtue; and as
doubtless it was a vice, insomuch as, if we believe another old Greek
pedagogue of the name of Aristotle, "all virtues are medial vices, and
all vices extreme virtues." How Tammas viewed this question may also
appear. But we may proceed to state, that Mrs. Janet Dodds was not
content with doing all those things with such severity of love or duty.
She was always telling herself what she intended to do, either at the
moment or afterwards. "This pan needs to be scoured." "Thae stockings
maun be darned." "This sark is as black as the lum, and maun be
plotted.
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