crime, and there was that
empty bed at the home for little girls. She determined to attend the
sheriff-court on Monday morning and ask to be given the custody of
Baubie.

When Monday morning came, ten o'clock saw Miss Mackenzie established in
a seat immediately below the sheriff's high bench. The Wisharts were
among the first batch tried, and made their appearance from a side-door.
Mrs. Wishart came first, stepping along with a resolute, brazen bearing
that contrasted with her husband's timid, shuffling gait. She was a
gypsy-looking woman, with wandering, defiant black eyes, and her red
face had the sign-manual of vice stamped upon it. After her came Baubie,
a red-tartan-covered mite, shrinking back and keeping as close to her
father as she could. Baubie had favored her mother as to complexion:
that was plain. The top of her rough head and her wild brown eyes were
just visible over the panel as she stared round her, taking in with
composure and astuteness everything that was going on. She was the most
self-possessed of her party, for under Mrs. Wishart's active brazenness
there could easily be seen fear and a certain measure of remorse hiding
themselves; and Wishart seemed to be but one remove from imbecility.

The charges were read with a running commentary of bad language from
Mrs. Wishart as her offences were detailed; Wishart blinked in a
helpless, pathetic way; Baubie, who seemed to consider herself as
associated with him alone in the charge, assumed an air of indifference
and sucked her thumb, meantime watching Miss Mackenzie furtively. She
felt puzzled to account for her presence there, but it never entered her
head to connect that fact with herself in any way.

"Guilty or not guilty?" asked the sheriff-clerk.

"There's a kin' lady in coort," stammered Wishart, "an' she kens a'
aboot it."

"Guilty or not guilty?" reiterated the clerk: "this is not the time to
speak." "She kens it a', an' she wis to tak' the lassie."

"Guilty or not guilty? You must plead, and you can say what you like
afterward." Wishart stopped, not without an appealing look at the kind
lady, and pleaded guilty meekly. A policeman with a scratched face and
one hand plastered up testified to the extravagances Mrs. Wishart had
committed on the strength of her conversion to teetotal principles.

Baubic heard it all impassively, her face only betraying anything like
keen interest while the police-officer was detailing his injuries. Three
mon