t her infernal
rites; and, suddenly dropping on her knees, said, with the manner of a
six years' old child, "Mammie, hear me say my prayers before I go to bed,
and say God bless my bonny face, as ye used to do lang syne."

"The deil flay the hide o' it to sole his brogues wi'!" said the old
lady, aiming a buffet at the supplicant, in answer to her duteous
request.

The blow missed Madge, who, being probably acquainted by experience with
the mode in which her mother was wont to confer her maternal
benedictions, slipt out of arm's length with great dexterity and
quickness. The hag then started up, and, seizing a pair of old
fire-tongs, would have amended her motion, by beating out the brains
either of her daughter or Jeanie (she did not seem greatly to care
which), when her hand was once more arrested by the man whom they called
Frank Levitt, who, seizing her by the shoulder, flung her from him with
great violence, exclaiming, "What, Mother Damnable--again, and in my
sovereign presence!--Hark ye, Madge of Bedlam! get to your hole with your
playfellow, or we shall have the devil to pay here, and nothing to pay
him with."

Madge took Levitt's advice, retreating as fast as she could, and dragging
Jeanie along with her into a sort of recess, partitioned off from the
rest of the barn, and filled with straw, from which it appeared that it
was intended for the purpose of slumber. The moonlight shone, through an
open hole, upon a pillion, a pack-saddle, and one or two wallets, the
travelling furniture of Madge and her amiable mother.--"Now, saw ye e'er
in your life," said Madge, "sae dainty a chamber of deas? see as the moon
shines down sae caller on the fresh strae! There's no a pleasanter cell
in Bedlam, for as braw a place as it is on the outside.--Were ye ever in
Bedlam?"

"No," answered Jeanie faintly, appalled by the question, and the way in
which it was put, yet willing to soothe her insane companion, being in
circumstances so unhappily precarious, that even the society of this
gibbering madwoman seemed a species of protection.

"Never in Bedlam?" said Madge, as if with some surprise.--"But ye'll hae
been in the cells at Edinburgh!"

"Never," repeated Jeanie.

"Weel, I think thae daft carles the magistrates send naebody to Bedlam
but me--thae maun hae an unco respect for me, for whenever I am brought
to them, thae aye hae me back to Bedlam. But troth, Jeanie" (she said
this in a very confidential tone), "to tell y