It was close on twelve o'clock of a March day in the poor sewing-women's workroom in Drummond street. The average number of women of the usual sort were collected together--a depressed and silent gathering. It seemed as if the bitter east wind had dulled and chilled them into a grayer monotony of look than usual, so that they might be in harmony with the general aspect which things without had assumed at its grim bidding. A score or so of wan faces looked up for a minute, but the child, after all, had nothing in her appearance that was calculated to repay attention, and the lady was known to them all. So "white seam" reasserted its old authority without much delay. Miss Mackenzie laid down the scissors which she had been using on a bit of coarse cotton, and advanced in reply to the address of the newcomer. "How do you do? and where did you pick up this creature?" she asked, looking curiously at the importation. "Near George IV. Bridge, on this side of it, and I just took hold of her and brought her off to you at once. I don't believe"--this was said _sotto voce_--"that she has a particle of clothing on her but that frock." "Very likely.--What is your name, my child?" "Baubie Wishart, mem." She spoke in an apologetic tone, glancing down at her feet, the one off duty being lowered for the purpose of inspection, which over, she hoisted the foot again immediately into the recesses of the Rob Roy tartan. "Have you a father and mother?" "Yes, mem." "What does your father do?" Baubie Wishart glanced down again in thought for an instant, then raised her eyes for the first time directly to her questioner's face: "He used to be a Christy man, but he canna be that any longer, sae he goes wi' boords." "Why cannot he be a Christy man any longer?" Down came the foot once more, and this time took up its position permanently beside the other: "Because mother drinks awfu', an' pawned the banjo for drink." This family history was related in the most matter-of-fact, natural way. "And does your father drink too?" asked Miss Mackenzie after a short pause. Baubie Wishart's eyes wandered all round the room, and with one toe she swept up a little mass of dust before she answered in a voice every tone of which spoke unwilling truthfulness, "Just whiles--Saturday nichts." "Is _he_ kind to you?" "Ay," looking up quickly, "excep' just whiles when he's fou--Saturday nichts, ye ken--and then he beats me; but he's rale kind when he's sober." "Were you ever at school?" "No, mem," with a shake of the head that seemed to convey that she had something else, and probably better, to do. "Did you ever hear of God?" asked the lady who had brought her. "Ay, mem," answered Baubie quite readily: "it's a kind of a bad word I hear in the streets." "How old are you?" asked both ladies simultaneously.