t alone in the great house--like one with whom the most
beneficent of fairies had been busy, the first thing Mistress Croale
did was to go and have a good look at herself--from head to foot--in
the same mirror that had enlightened Donal as to his outermost man.
Very different was the re-reflection it caused in Mistress Croale:
she was satisfied with everything she saw there, except her
complexion, and that she resolved should improve. She was almost
painfully happy. Out there was the Widdiehill, dark and dismal and
cold, through which she had come, sad and shivering and haunted with
miserable thoughts, into warmth and splendour and luxury and bliss!
Wee Sir Gibbie had made a lady of her! If only poor Sir George
were alive to see and share!--There was but one thing wanted to make
it Paradise indeed--a good tumbler of toddy by the fire before she
went to bed!

Then first she thought of the vow she had made as she signed the
paper, and shuddered--not at the thought of breaking it, but at the
thought of having to keep it, and no help.--No help! it was the
easiest thing in the world to get a bottle of whisky. She had but
to run to Jink Lane at the farthest, to her own old house, which,
for all Mr. Sclater, was a whisky shop yet! She had emptied her
till, and had money in her pocket. Who was there to tell? She
would not have a chance when Sir Gibbie came home to her. She must
make use of what time was left her. She was safe now from going too
far, because she must give it up; and why not then have one farewell
night of pleasure, to bid a last good-bye to her old friend Whisky?
what should she have done without him, lying in the cold wind by a
dykeside, or going down the Daur like a shot on her brander?--Thus
the tempting passion; thus, for aught I know, a tempting devil at
the ear of her mind as well.--But with that came the face of Gibbie;
she thought how troubled that face would look if she failed him.
What a lost, irredeemable wretch was she about to make of herself
after all he had done for her! No; if whisky was heaven, and the
want of it was hell, she would not do it! She ran to the door,
locked it, brought away the key, and laid it under the Bible from
which she had been reading to Sir Gibbie. Perhaps she might have
done better than betake herself again to her finery, but it did help
her through the rest of the evening, and she went to her grand bed
not only sober, but undefiled of the enemy. When Gibbie