en you get
ill or old!"

"Thank 'ee for nothin', Little Bill, for I don't mean to become either
ill or old for some time to come; but, I say, are they goin' to perform
an operation on Old Peg's head?"

This was said in consequence of Elspie shouting to the old woman to let
her put something into her ear to cure deafness.

"Cure deafness!" she exclaimed, with a faint laugh, "nothin' will ever
cure _my_ deafness. But I can trust _you_, dearie, so do what you
please."

"Shut your eyes, then."

"And open your mouth!" said Archie to Little Bill in a low voice.

Old Peg did as she was bid. Dan, approaching behind her, put the small
end of the tube into her right ear--which was the best one--and Elspie,
putting her mouth to the other end, spoke to her in her soft, natural
voice.

The effect was amusing. Old Peg dropped into her chair as if paralysed,
and gazed from one to another in mute amazement.

"Eh! dearie. Did I ever think to hear the sweet low voice o' Elspie
like as it was when she was a bairn! Most amazin'!" she said. "Let me
hear't again."

The operation was repeated, and it was finally found that, by means of
this extemporised ear-trumpet, the poor creature once more became a
conversable member of society. She went about the house the remainder
of that day in a quite excited state, asking questions of everybody, and
putting the end of the instrument to their mouths for an answer. Archie
even declared that he had caught her alone in the back-kitchen shoving
the cat's head into the mouth-piece of the instrument, and pinching its
tail to make it mew.

It was two days after the occurrence of these incidents that the old
woman was seated by Duncan's bedside, gazing through her tortoise-shell
glasses at the well-thumbed Bible, when her patient, who had been very
restless, looked up and spoke.

"Can I do anything for ye, dearie?" said Old Peg, putting the
trumpet-end into her ear, and handing the mouth-piece to Duncan.

"You--you hear much better now, Old Peg?" said the sick man, in his
natural voice.

"Ay, much, much better; thanks to the Lord--and to Mr Daniel."

"If Daniel had not thought of it," said the invalid, quite gravely, "do
you think that the Lord would hev sent the machine to you?"

"He might or He might not," returned the old woman, promptly. "It's not
for me to say, nor yet to guess on that point. But this I do know for
certain--if the Lord hadna' thought upon Mr Daniel, then Mr