f-full of turnip-seed; and
upon it Annie sat, and drearily surveyed the circumstances.

Auntie was standing in the middle of the shop. Bruce was holding the
counter open, and inviting her to enter.

"Ye'll come in and tak a cup o' tay, efter yer journey, Marget?" said
he.

"Na, I thank ye, Robert Bruce. Jeames and I maun jist turn and gae hame
again. There's a hantle to look efter yet, and we maunna neglec' oor
wark. The hoose-gear's a' to be roupit the morn."

Then turning to Annie, she said:

"Noo, Annie, lass, ye'll be a guid bairn, and do as ye're tell't. An'
min' and no pyke the things i' the chop."

A smile of peculiar import glimmered over Bruce's face at the sound of
this injunction. Annie made no reply, but stared at Mr Bruce, and sat
staring.

"Good-bye to ye, Annie!" said her aunt, and roused her a little from
her stupor.

She then gave her a kiss--the first, as far as the child knew, that she
had ever given her--and went out. Bruce followed her out, and Dowie
came in. He took her up in his arms, and said:

"Good-bye to ye, my bonnie bairn. Be a guid lass, and ye'll be ta'en
care o'. Dinna forget that. Min' and say yer prayers."

Annie kissed him with all her heart, but could not reply. He set her
down again, and went out. She heard the harness rattle, and the cart go
off. She was left sitting on the sack.

Presently Mr Bruce came in, and passing behind his counter, proceeded
to make an entry in a book. It could have been no order from poor,
homeless Margaret. It was, in fact, a memorandum of the day and the
hour when Annie was set down on that same sack--so methodical was he!
And yet it was some time before he seemed to awake to the remembrance
of the presence of the child. Looking up suddenly at the pale, weary
thing, as she sat with her legs hanging lifelessly down the side of the
sack, he said--pretending to have forgotten her--

"Ow, bairn, are ye there yet?"

And going round to her, he set her on the floor, and leading her by the
hand through the mysterious gate of the counter, and through a door
behind it, called in a sharp decided tone:

"Mother, ye're wanted!"

Thereupon a tall, thin, anxious-looking woman appeared, wiping her
hands in her apron.

"This is little Miss Anderson," said Bruce, "come to bide wi's. Gie her
a biscuit, and tak' her up the stair till her bed."

As it was the first, so it was the last time he called her _Miss_
Anderson, at least while she was one of his