“No, my dear bairn, it will no tire me; and it’s weel my part to do all I can to pleasure you or yours, though I will not just say but what I may feel a wee thought ashamed to tell sic a lang tale afore all the young ladies, and this fine young gentleman.” “But Peggy,” Leila said eagerly, “he is not a fine young gentleman; he is so kind and good-natured, he will like to hear the history of all that has happened to you very much; and if he does not understand all the Scotch words, I will explain them to him afterwards; he is my brother Charles now, you need not be afraid of him.” “Your brother, is he? Weel, weel, sae let it be for the present, my bonnie lamb. And noo where am I to begin in this lang tale?” “At the very beginning,” Leila and Matilda both exclaimed at once; “at the very beginning, Peggy, when you first embarked with all the pets.” “Ay, ay, and to think I hae no had the grace to ask after the puir dumb things; but I am sair bewildered, and I kent they needs be safe, for there’s my cat that was amang them, just lying afore the fire quite contented, and no ways strange, puir thing. That civil gentleman, Master Bill, (I think they call him,) brought it up to me this morning, and my trunk too with my big Bible, and all the bits o’ things that are sae valuable to me.” “But the story, the story, Peggy,” Matilda exclaimed, rather emphatically. “Yes, my bairn, that’s true, I was forgetting, and it’s aye the story, the story, wi’ you young things. Weel then, to begin at the very beginning, as you say. We got into the ship, (that is, the pets, as Miss Leila calls them, and me,) and it was a bonnie day, and the sea sparkling like diamonds, and wi’ a most deceitfu’ and canny look; but it was all put on; no a word o’ truth in it, for it’s a most unchancy and awfu’ element, and in no ways to be trusted by a Christian woman. Weel, my first discomfiture was when I was telt that I was by no means to go near the pets, or to take any charge, for they would have better care than mine; deed, and I was in no ways weel pleased, forbye that I had been thinking the parrots would have been gude company, and that I could hae given them some gude instruction maybe, puir things, and got them into a manner o’ more sensible discourse than aye crying, ‘pretty poll,’ and the like o’ thae vain and silly things. But it was no to be, so I turned my mind to some wee helpless bairns that were aye wailing and wearying for something; for ye ken Peggy must aye be doing. They had lost their mother, puir things, and the father o’ them was sadly put about when night came, and all their bits o’ clothes to take off, and the strings o’ them aye getting into knots, and he wi’ no manner o’ skill or judgment to gang to work in the right manner; so I took them all in my ain hands, and got them into their bits o’ cribs wi’ a kind o’ comfort, and the wee thing who was but a babby clinging round my neck in the dark, and saying, ‘Mamma was come back again, and she was no to gang