"And then she died hersel. He wad be haill eighteen then, maistly a man; and ye wad have thought his heart would burst. For months after that, he used to come in and sit beside me in the nursery, never speaking a word. We were the truest mourners in Merkland, him and me, and maybe it made us like ane anither a' the better. "It was a dreary year, that first year after your mother died; but there were drearier years to come. The twelvemonth was just out, when it began to be whispered in the countryside that Merkland was courting a new wife. I could have felled the first body that said it to me, and Mr. Norman flew upon Duncan, in the greatest passion I ever saw him in, for dauring to hint at sic a word; but the rumor rose, for a' that (folk said it was because Mr. Norman had been put aside from inheriting Merkland, because he was to take his uncle's name, and sae noo there was nae heir,) till I put it to the Laird my ain sel--ye may think it bauld, Miss Anne, but I had been about the house a' his married life.--That very night--for I wasna likely to bide wi' a strange woman in my mistress's seat--I was sorting my bits of odds and ends to gang away; and looking at you, sleeping in your wee bed, and murning for ye, an innocent lamb, left to the cold mercies of a stepmother, when Mr. Norman came in. I saw, by the white look of him, in a moment, that he had been hurt and wounded to the very heart (and so he was,) for his father had tell't him. Eh! Miss Anne, to think that he could tell the fine, manly, grown-up lad, that nae mortal could help being proud o'; and that was liker being marriet himsel than hearing tell o' his father. "So he sat down by the fireside and covered his face wi' his hands, and did not say a word to me--only I heard him moaning to himsel, 'O, mother, mother!' Nae wonder--we were wearing our murnings still, and she had been but ae twelvemonth gone. "So the marriage-day came at last. I had flitted into this house the week afore--and there were mony folk at the wedding, only Mrs. Catherine, and Strathoran's lady, and some more, wouldna come; and when they sought Mr. Norman, he wasna to be found far or near--where think ye he spent that day, Miss Anne? at his mother's grave!