possible, for the very life seemed sinking out o’ me; so I crept round by the back o’ the house to seek some sheltered nook to lie down in, no wishing ever to rise again. All my desire was to lay myself down in a quiet corner and there to be found dead in the morning. I was leaning against a wall sair spent, and Dash keeping close at my side, as he aye did, striving, puir thing, to keep me warm, when a mist came afore my eyes--it cleared away, and I seemed to see my ain bonnie bairns wi’ the faces o’ angels beckoning to me, and I heard my husband’s voice speaking words o’ comfort, and then a door at the back of the house softly opened, and the bonnie lamb I had seen afore stepped out into the moonlight; she looked about her for a moment on every side, and when the light fell on the face o’ her, it seemed to me as if she too was a kind spirit frae anither world. She was passing to the front o’ the house when she saw me, and, oh!--but it was a sweet voice that sounded in my ear when she took my hand, and said,--‘There is a sixpence and a penny for you, it is all the money I have, but maybe it will get you a bed at a house you will soon come to on the road-side; and here is some bread and cheese for your supper, for I am sure you are hungry.’ I was trying to say something, when a voice cried out, ‘Alice, Alice, where are you?’ and the mistress hersel’ came up to where we were standing. ‘Oh, mother!’ the dear bairn said, ‘do not put her away for she looks so sorrowful and she can scarcely walk; do let her sit at the kitchen fire all night--I am sure she is an honest woman.’ The mistress looked in my face. ‘Well,’ she said, I may have judged you wrongfully, so I will take Alice’s word for it; for it’s not my usual custom to turn my face from the poor of the land, so come in, old woman, and you shall have some supper.’ She took me into the warm kitchen, and seated me at the fire, and the best o’ every thing was set afore me, and bonnie wee Alice took a low stool and set herself down at my feet, and she aye looked up in my face wi’ her kindly smile, and seemed to enjoy every morsel I put in my mouth; and she could na make enough o’ Dash, and was sae pleased when the mistress hersel’ set a plate o’ bones afore him that might have served a king. Aweel, we took our supper wi’ thanksgiving, and in a closet off the kitchen I had a clean comfortable bed to lie down on, which was a great refreshment. The mistress took to me in an uncommon way. I telt her where I was going, and all about it; and in the morning she gave me my breakfast and a white shilling out o’ her ain pocket. I was fain to gie little Alice back her sixpence and the penny, but she was affronted and would na hear tell o’ it; so I laid them down on the wee pillow o’ her bed when she was looking anither way.”