f ever, when a great son of the big woman was to be married to
the daughter of a Nawab. All the great men of Bombay, and the rich
Parsees, she called them, were at the king's court, and the little
princes round about for hundreds of miles, and all the ministers of
Indian state,--for you must know that the marriage was in the English
fashion, as the Nawab thought he could bind the bridegroom best in that
way. Then the grand feast, and such dancing, and deray, and firing of
cannons, and waving of flags, was never seen!"

"'And all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang
again.'"

"Just so, guid auld Burgher lad," rejoined Mrs. M'Pherson.

"They had only been a few months married, when Mr. Fletcher's health
having failed him,--and surely his liver is rotten to this day, if not
his heart too,--he came home with his wife, and bought this bonnie
place. She brought with her a squalling half-and-half thing,--there he's
at the door this moment." By-and-by, "My little prince (she cried), go
to Aditi--Ady, we call her--that's the black ayah my lady brought home
with her."

"That will be another wife, I fancy," said Aminadab. "They have all two
or three wives in the East, haven't they? Guid faith, ane's mair than
eneugh here, if the Nawab's daughter's in her cradle."

"No, no, no, ye fool."

"'And I shall cut off the multitude of No,' Ezekiel thirtieth, fifteen."

"An ayah is a servant; and Ady's a good black soul as ever foolishly
washed her face when there's no occasion for the trouble. And yet these
black creatures are for ever washing themselves. They wash before
breakfast and after breakfast, before dinner and after dinner, before
supper and after supper, but the never a bit whiter they are that ever I
could see."

"Yea, they might save themselves a great deal of trouble," said
Aminadab.

"But they won't," rejoined Janet. "We have been tortured with their
washings. Sometimes, when angry, I say to Ady, Can't you go down to the
_Scouring Burn_?"

"'And wash thyself in the brook Cherith, which is before Jordan.'"

"But she says it's Brahma that bids her--that's their biggest god; and
this Brahma is a trouble to us too. It seems he is everywhere; and Ady
seeks him on Balgay Hill and in the churchyard o' nights, when the
moon's out; thereafter coming in with those eyes of hers like flaming
coals, darting them on us, who don't believe in Brahma, as if we were
the real heathens, and not she and her mis