Jean, however, was on the shady side of fifty, more likely to have already yielded than to be liable to a first assault of corruption; and little did Miss Horn think how useless was her warning, or where Barbara Catanach was at that very moment. Trusting to Jean’s cunning, as well she might, she was in the dead-chamber, and standing over the dead. She had folded back the sheet--not from the face, but from the feet--and raised the night dress of fine linen in which the love of her cousin had robed the dead for the repose of the tomb. “It wad hae been tellin’ her,” she muttered, “to hae spoken Bawby fair! I’m no used to be fa’en foul o’ that gait. I s’ be even wi’ her yet, I’m thinkin’--the auld speldin’! Losh! and Praise be thankit! there it ’s! It’s there!--a wee darker, but the same --jist whaur I could ha’ laid the pint o’ my finger upo’ ’t i’ the mirk!--Noo lat the worms eat it,” she concluded, as she folded down the linen of shroud and sheet--“an’ no mortal ken o’ ’t but mysel’ an’ him ’at bude till hae seen ’t, gien he was a hair better nor Glenkindie’s man i’ the auld ballant!” The instant she had re-arranged the garments of the dead, she turned and made for the door with a softness of step that strangely contrasted with the ponderousness of her figure, and indicated great muscular strength, opened it with noiseless circumspection to the width of an inch, peeped out from the crack, and seeing the opposite door still shut, stepped out with a swift, noiseless swing of person and door simultaneously, closed the door behind her, stole down the stairs, and left the house. Not a board creaked, not a latch clicked as she went. She stepped into the street as sedately as if she had come from paying to the dead the last offices of her composite calling, the projected front of her person appearing itself aware of its dignity as the visible sign and symbol of a good conscience and kindly heart. CHAPTER III. THE MAD LAIRD.