d-like on her hand. So, being back there in the shadow, I had not
noticed her at the first, being taken up, as was small wonder, with the
sight of that bonnie yellow-haired bairn flichtering here and there
like a butterfly in the sun.

"Then the wee lass saw me and ran whatever she could to me. She took
my hand and syne looked up in my face as trustful-like as if she ha'
kenned me all her days.

"'Here woman,' she cried, 'come and wake my minnie to me, for I canna.
She winna hearken when her wee Elsie speaks to her.'

"Hand in hand we went up to the poor thing, and even as I went a great
fear gripped me by the heart. For the woman sat still, even when my
step must have sounded in her ear. I laid my hand on her, and, as I am
a living woman, she was clay cauld. The bairn looked ever up into my
face.

"'Can you no waken my mither, either?' she said wistfully.

"'No,' said I. 'No, my puir, wee lassie!' For truth to tell, I kenned
not what to say.

"'Will minnie never waken?' she asked again, bright as a button.

"'I fear not, bonnie lassie,' said I, and the tear was in my eye.

"Then the elf clapped her hands and danced like a yellow butterfly over
the lea.

"'Then she willna greet any more! She willna be hungry any more. She
will never need bite o' meat nor thread o' claes for ever and ever
mair.' She lilted the words almost as if she had been singing a tune.
'She will be richt pleased, my minnie. For, oh, she grat sair and
often! She carried me in her arms till her ain feet were hurted and
she could gang nae farther. Late yestreen she sat doon here to wash
them, and I sat, too, and after that she cuddled me in her airms. Are
ye no richt glad for my minnie?'

"I telled her that I was glad, for naught less would satisfy her,
though even as I spak the words the sob rose in my throat.

"And as we stood there, looking at the woman sitting with her face on
her hands, what should happen but that the auld miser should come
hirpling to the door, and there, too, looking over his shoulder, was
Daft Jeremy, that the village bairns were wont to cry at and call the
'Mounster.'

"'What hae ye there, Nance Edgar?' the old man cried, shaking his stick
at me; 'keep away from my door with your doxies and changeling bairns.'"

"But I was civil to him for his age's sake, and also because of the
witless man that was looking over his shoulder. For it is not good to
cross such as the Lord has smitten in their under