istress, for her hands were fervently clasped, and
she was swinging her body backwards and forwards like a bark without a
rudder on a billowy sea, when the winds of an angry heaven are let loose
upon't.

What made this forlorn wretch the more remarkable was a seeming remnant
of better days in something about herself, besides the silken rags of
garments that had once been costly. For, as she from time to time lifted
her delicate hands aloft in her despairing ecstasy, the scrap of
blanket, which was all her mantle, fell back and showed such lily and
lady-like arms that it was impossible to look upon her without
compassion, and not also to wonder from what high and palmy estate she
had fallen into such abject poverty.

My grandfather and his wife, with Agnes, stopped for a moment, and
conferred together about what alms they would offer to a gentlewoman
brought so low; when she, observing them, came wildly towards them
crying, "For the Mother of God, to save a famishing outcast from death
and perdition."

Her frantic gesture, far more than her papistical exclamation, made
their souls shudder; and before they had time to reply, she fell on her
knees, and taking Elspa by the hand, repeated the same vehement prayer,
adding, "Do, do, even though I be the vilest and guiltiest of
womankind."

"Marion Ruet!--O, my sister!--O, my dear Marion!" as wildfully and as
wofully did my grandmother in that instant also cry aloud, falling on
the beggar-woman's neck, and sobbing as if her heart would have burst;
for it was indeed the bailie's wife, and the mother of Agnes, that
supplicated for a morsel.

This sad sight brought many persons around, among others a decent
elderly carlin that kept a huxtry shop close by, who pitifully invited
them to come from the public causey into her house; and with some
difficulty my grandfather removed the two sisters thither. Agnes
Kilspinnie, poor thing, following like a demented creature, not even
able to drop a tear at so meeting with her humiliated parent, who, from
the moment that she was known, could only gaze like the effigy of some
extraordinary consternation carved in alabaster stone.

When they had been some time in the house of old Ursie Firikins, as the
kind carlin was called, Elspa Ruet all the while weeping like a constant
fountain and repeating, "Marion, Marion!" with a fond and sorrowful
tenderness that would allow her to say no more, my grandfather having
got a drink of meal and wat