to the bits o' bairns."

"Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she's an awsome wife!" said Jenny in reply.
"D'ye think she's a'thegither right? Folk say she downa gang to the
kirk, or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist but since
her gudeman's been dead, naebody kens what she is. D'ye think yoursell
that she's no uncanny?"

"Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife's less canny than
anither? unless it be Alison Breck--I really couldna in conscience swear
for her; I have kent the boxes she set fill'd wi' partans, when"--

"Whisht, whisht, Maggie," whispered Jenny--"your gudemither's gaun to
speak again."

"Wasna there some ane o' ye said," asked the old sibyl, "or did I dream,
or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an'
buried this night?"

"Yes, gudemither," screamed the daughter-in-law, "it's e'en sae."

"And e'en sae let it be," said old Elspeth; "she's made mony a sair
heart in her day--ay, e'en her ain son's--is he living yet?"

"Ay, he's living yet; but how lang he'll live--however, dinna ye mind his
coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?"

"It may be sae, Magge--I dinna mind it--but a handsome gentleman he was,
and his father before him. Eh! if his father had lived, they might hae
been happy folk! But he was gane, and the lady carried it in--ower and
out-ower wi' her son, and garr'd him trow the thing he never suld hae
trowed, and do the thing he has repented a' his life, and will repent
still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o' mine."

"O what was it, grannie?"--and "What was it, gudemither?"--and "What was
it, Luckie Elspeth?" asked the children, the mother, and the visitor, in
one breath.

"Never ask what it was," answered the old sibyl, "but pray to God that
ye arena left to the pride and wilfu'ness o' your ain hearts: they may
be as powerful in a cabin as in a castle--I can bear a sad witness to
that. O that weary and fearfu' night! will it never gang out o' my auld
head!--Eh! to see her lying on the floor wi' her lang hair dreeping wi'
the salt water!--Heaven will avenge on a' that had to do wi't. Sirs! is
my son out wi' the coble this windy e'en?"

"Na, na, mither--nae coble can keep the sea this wind; he's sleeping in
his bed out-ower yonder ahint the hallan."

"Is Steenie out at sea then?"

"Na, grannie--Steenie's awa out wi' auld Edie Ochiltree, the gaberlunzie;
maybe they'll be gaun to see the burial."

"