och is as well known down
Stony Close as ever I am. Her mother lived next to mine, and does to
this day, and holds her head so high, on account of her daughter, that
she'd like to pass mother in the street if she dared. If you belong to
her, it's news to me, and I've known her all my life." All this was said
with the quaint expressions and broad northern dialect that Elsie very
well understood, although none but a Scottish lassie would do so.

"I don't think you like her much," Elsie said.

The girl made a wry grimace. "I like any one so long as they don't do me
no harm," she replied evasively. "She wouldn't stand at that, either, if
she had the mind. How did you get with her?"

Elsie pondered a moment, and then decided she would tell this girl
everything, and trust to her being a friend.

"She found us on a road by the mountains, oh! ever so far away from
here; and she seemed so kind, and brought us clothes, and took us to a
nice house to sleep, and brought us in the train all this way," Elsie
said.

"H'm," the girl said, looking rather puzzled. "Well, she'd got her
reasons," she added presently. "I don't know what they might be, but it
wasn't done for any good to you. What did they bring you here for?"

"I don't know," Elsie replied.

"You see, master's in all their secrets. He's one with them, and does a
lot of business with them. To tell you the truth--which you needn't let
out, unless you want to have your head smashed--he's master's brother,
only he goes under another name. Now, what did he tell you his name
was?"

"I was told to call him Uncle 'William,'" Elsie replied, "and the lady
'Mamma.'"

The girl laughed to herself heartily--a sort of suppressed chuckle,
which could scarcely have been heard outside the door. "Well, that's a
queer dodge! I suppose she made out that she was his sister; and she was
dressed like a widow, and he's her husband all the time, which I know
very well. She passes, then, as a widow with two children, does she?"

"I suppose so," Elsie replied, scarcely understanding what the girl was
talking about.

"She's deep, she is," the girl continued; "and lots of money always,
hasn't she? rings too, and bracelets, and all sorts of things."

"She had at first all those things, and I've seen a lot of money in her
purse."

"Well, would you think she once lived in Stony Close along of us, and
was only a poor girl like me, though always a dashing one, with a
handsome face of her own?