ntered a tiny shop close
by, purchased a mutton-pie and handed it to Baubie Wishart, who received
it with wondering reverence. Miss Mackenzie took her way home westward
up the Grassmarket. She turned round before leaving it by way of King's
Stables, and caught sight of Bauble's frock by the entry of Kennedy's
Lodgings--a tiny morsel of color against the shadow of the huge gray
houses. She thought of the big kitchen and its occupants, and the face
and words of the poor girl, and promised herself that she would send the
school-board officer to Kennedy's Lodgings that very night.

Baubie waited till her friend was well out of sight: then she hid her
mutton-pie in the same place with the onions and the piece of bread, and
started up the Grassmarket in her turn. She stopped at the first shop
she passed and bought a pennyworth of cheese. Then she made her way to
the Lothian road, and looked up and down it anxiously in search of the
walking advertisement-man. He was not there, so she directed her course
toward Princes street, and after promenading it as far east as the
Mound, she turned up into George street, and caught sight of her father
walking along slowly by the curbstone. It was not long before she
overtook him.

"Od, lassie, I wis thinkin' lang," he began wearily as soon as he
realized her apparition. Baubie did not wait for him to finish: with a
peremptory nod she signified her will, and he turned round and followed
her a little way down Hanover street. Then Baubie selected a flight of
steps leading to a basement store, and throwing him a look of command
flitted down and seated herself at the bottom. It was sheltered from
the cold wind and not too much overlooked. Wishart shifted the boards
from about his shoulders, and, following her, laid them against the wall
at the side of the basement-steps, and sat down heavily beside her. He
was a sickly-looking man, sandy-haired, with a depressed and shifty
expression of face--not vicious, but weak and vacillating. Baubie seemed
to have the upper hand altogether: every gesture showed it. She opened
the paper that was wrapped about her fragment of rank yellow cheese,
laid it down on the step between them, and then produced, in their order
of precedence, the pie, the onions and the bread.

"Wha gied ye that?" asked Wishart, gazing at the mutton-pie.

"A leddy," replied Baubie, concisely.

"An' they?" pointing to the onions.

A nod was all the answer, for Baubie, who was hun