r, quite disarranged all Nancy's ideas. By another great
effort, she checked the expression of her feelings, and asked:

"And what does your aunt say to all this?"

"Oh, I have said nothing to her yet. It would only trouble her; and if
I can get nothing else to do, I must keep the children till the
`harvest-play' comes. That won't be so very long now."

"But, dear me, lassie! it must be that you have awful little to live on,
if the few pence you could earn would make a difference," said Nancy,
forgetting, in her excitement, her resolution to say nothing rashly.
"Surely it's not needful that you should slave yourself that way."

"My aunt would not like me to speak about it. But I ought to do all I
can; and I would like herding best."

Nancy's patience was ebbing fast.

"Well, lass, you've sought advice from me, and you shall get it. You're
just as fit for herding as you are for breaking stones. Now, just be
quiet, my dear. What do you ken about herding, but what you have learnt
beneath Elsie Ray's plaid on a summer's afternoon? And what good could
you do your aunt,--away before four in the morning, and not home till
dark at night, as you would need to be?"

The last stroke told.

"I could do little, indeed," thought Lilias; but she could not speak,
and soon Nancy said:

"As for light field-labour, if such a thing was to be found in the
countryside, which is not my thought, your aunt would never hear of such
a thing. Field-labourers canna choose their company; and they are but a
rough set at best. Weeding might do better. If you could have got into
the Pentlands gardens, now. But, dear me! It just shows that there's
none exempt from trouble, be they high or be they low. Folk say the
Laird o' Pentlands is in sore trouble, and the sins of the father are to
be visited on the children. The Lady of Pentlands and her bairns are
going to foreign parts, where they needn't think shame to be kenned as
puir folk. There will be little done in the Pentlands gardens this
while, I doubt. There's Broyra, but that is a good five miles away: you
could never go there and come back at night."

"But surely there's something that I can do?" said Lilias, entreatingly.

"Yes, there's just one thing you can do. You can have patience, and sit
still, and see what will come out of this. If I were you, and you were
me, you could, I don't doubt, give me many a fine precept and promise
from the Scriptures to that effect.