want to go to Edinburgh to try my luck there; but though my uncle
spent quite a fortune on my education, and though I did my best to
profit by it, I really can see no way of making my living."

"Hout tout," said Peggy, "no fear of you making a living, you could do
that as well as me; but it is more than a living for yourself you are
wanting; you are thinking of Miss Elsie, poor bit lassie, and would
fain work for two. I mind well when my sister left the bairns to my
care with her dying breath, I felt my heart owre grit. It was more than
I, a single woman, with but seven pounds by the year of wages, could
hope to do, to keep the bit creatures; but yet it was borne on my mind
that I was to do it, and God be praised that He has given me the
strength and the opportunity, and it is little burden they have been to
any other body; and in due time, when they have got learning enough,
and are come the length to get the passage, I will take them back with
me to Melbourne, where their prospects will be better than in the old
country."

"Oh, Peggy! would Australia suit us? Would you advise us to go there?"

"No, Miss Melville, I scarcely think so. For the like of me it is the
best place in the world; for the like of you I cannot be at all clear
about it. I'll tell you my story some day, but not now, for I am
pressed for time, getting everything in readiness for the flitting; and
I want time to collect my thoughts; my memory is none of the best. But,
Miss Melville, if I am not making too free, I have a little room in my
new house that I would be blithe to let you and Miss Elsie have, and
you could stay there quietly till something turns up for you."

"If we can afford the rent."

"Oh, the rent!" said Peggy; "you need not think about the rent, if you
could only give the lasses a lesson in sewing (for I'm no very skilful
with the needle, and my hands are so rough with the washing and
dressing that the thread aye hanks on my fingers), and make out my
washing bills for my Customers that are not so methodical as yourself.
As for writing and counting, it is my abomination. There need no rent
pass between us."

"Thank you, Peggy, thank you; that will suit us nicely. But tell me,
can we--that is, Elsie and me--can we live in Edinburgh on twenty-four
pounds a-year?"

"I have known many a family brought up decently on as little, or even
less," said Peggy; "but then they were differently bred from you and
could live hard. Porridge and