nto hysterics; for the first thing I mind o' after his
saying so, was a dozen people standing round about me--some slapping at
the palms o' my hands, and others laving water on my breast and temples,
until they had me as wet as if they had douked me in Pollock's Well.

I canna tell how I stood up against this clap o' misery. It was near
getting the better o' me. For a time I really hated the very name and
the sight o' man, and I said, as the song says, that

'Men are a' deceivers.'

But this was not the worst o' it--I had lost my all, and I was now
forced into the acquaintanceship of poverty and dependence. I first went
to live under the roof o' my youngest sister, who had always been my
favourite; but, before six months went round, I found that she began to
treat me just as though I had been a servant, ordering me to do this
and do the other; and sometimes my dinner was sent ben to me into the
kitchen; and the servant lassies, seeing how their mistress treated me,
considered that they should be justified in doing the same--and they did
the same. Many a weary time have I lain down upon my bed and wished
never to rise again, for my spirit was weary o' this world. But I put up
wi' insult after insult, until flesh and blood could endure it no
longer. Then did I go to my other sister, and she hardly opened her
mouth to me as I entered her house. I saw that I might gang where I
liked--I wasna welcome there. Before I had been a week under her roof, I
found that the herd's dog led a lady's life to mine. I was forced to
leave her too.

And, as a sort o' last alternative, just to keep me in existence, I
began a bit shop in a neighbouring town, and took in sewing and washing;
and, after I had tried them awhile, and found that they would hardly
do, I commenced a bit school, at the advice of the minister's wife, and
learned bairns their letters and the catechism, and knitting and sewing.
I also taught them (for they were a' girls) how to work their samplers,
and to write, and to cast accounts. But what vexed and humbled me more
than all I had suffered, was, that one night, just after I had let my
scholars away, an auld hedger and ditcher body, almost sixty years o'
age, came into the house, and 'How's a' wi' ye the nicht?' says he,
though I had never spoken to the man before. But he took off his bonnet,
and, pulling in a chair, drew a seat to the fire. I was thunderstruck!
But I was yet mair astonished and ashamed, when the