with me, you shall have something to eat at least.’ She took me by the arm and helped me on, and we entered a big house, where a great mony people seemed to be living, for I heard voices o’ men and women, and bairns, some crying and some laughing. ‘My sister and I have a room here,’ she said, as we gaed up the stairs; then taking me by the hand along a dark passage, she opened a door, and I saw a young woman sitting close to the window working busily, though it was getting dark. ‘Jessie,’ she said, ‘you will have thought me long away, and after all I have come back without the money for the shirts, for Mrs. Churchill was not at home.’ ‘Without the money,’ Jessie repeated, ‘and not a morsel in the house beyond our night’s supper, and not a farthing to buy more! Oh, Ellen, this is sorrowful news. But who is this you have got with you?’ Ellen told her how she had fallen in wi’ me, and it was beautiful to see the kindness o’ baith the sisters. There was but a small fire, but they gathered up the cinders, and made me sit close to it, and they rubbed my hands and spoke words o’ comfort to me; and Ellen brought some bread and cheese out of a cupboard, and set it afore me, and baith o’ them pressed me to eat. Just then there was a tap at the door. ‘That will be the nurse,’ Ellen said, jumping up; ‘I forgot to tell you that she said she might perhaps be able to bring the money if her mistress came home in time.’ It was the nurse sure enough, and oh, sic joy as it was to the kind-hearted creatures when the nurse counted down ten bonnie shillings on the table. ‘Put on the tea-kettle,’ Ellen said, ‘and I will be back in a moment with some tea and sugar; and, Mistress Nurse, perhaps you will stay and take a cup of tea, you have always been such a kind friend to us.’ But Mistress Nurse said she could by no means stay, for her lady might want her; and she was just going away when she noticed Dash. ‘Bless me,’ she said, ‘what a fine animal, but how thin he is; he looks half-starved; my heart is sore for the creature, tea is not just the thing for him, but if I can get hold of the stable-boy when I go home, I will send him up with a plate of scraps; he will like that better.’ And she was as good as her word; Dash had such a supper as he had not seen for many a day. And how the sisters were pleased and diverted when the creature picked out the largest bone he could find in all the platter, and laid it at my feet. Aweel, we had our tea in comfort, and the best o’ butter, which Ellen said was a treat by ordinar, and muckle pleasant discourse; and I telt them about you, Miss Selina, getting your speech again, and about Miss Leila in the island. They said it was like a fairy tale, and that they had naething to tell me about themselves sae romantic. They had lost baith father and mother, and they worked for their bread, and had come through great straits; sometimes they had plenty to do, and were comfortable enough, and