"God be thankit ye were passing by, Miss Anne!" exclaimed Mrs. Melder. "I am the silliest body mysel that was ever putten in a strait. Eh! do ye no hear my heart beating?--and the stranger bairn!" "Whose is it, Mrs. Melder?" asked Anne, as they undressed the moaning child, and laid her on the wooden bed which formed part of the furniture of the homely apartment. "And that is just what I cannot tell ye, Miss Anne," said the miller's wife. "It was left wi' me by ane--ye wad meet her on the road. She wasna put on like a lady, but she wasna a common body either--it was clear to see that. We've had a dreary house, Robert and me, since little Bell (ye'll mind her, Miss Anne?) was ta'en from us, two years syne come Martinmas, and the stranger leddy had heard tell o't, and thocht, as she said, that I wad be guid to the child--as I will, doubtless, puir, innocent thing!--who could be otherwise?" "And where did she come from?" inquired Anne, as she assisted in applying some simple remedies. "The bairn? Na, how can I tell you that Miss Anne, when I dinna ken mysel?" "No, no; I mean the lady," said Anne, hurriedly. "I saw her--a very remarkable-looking person she is. Is the child her own?" "Na; she _said_ no, any way," said Mrs. Melder. "Whaever it belongs to, they think shame o't, that's sure. Woes me, Miss Ross! the ill that there is in this world! She has been living at the brig for a day or two back, and the bairn wi' her. I am doubtful it was but a foolish thing, taking a bairn when one kens nought of its kindred. But the house was dreary. Where there has been a babe in a dwelling, it makes great odds when the light of its bit countenance is lifted away, and my heart warmed to the puir wee thing, sent out from its own bluid. So I took it, ye see, Miss Ross, and Robert he didna oppose. It's to bide two years--if we're all spared as long--and the stipend for it is twenty pound, and the siller's lying in Mr. Foreman the writer's hands--so we canna come to any loss. It's an uncommon bairn a'thegither o't, and speaks in a tongue neither Robert nor me can make onything of. It maun have come from some far part--was ye speaking, my lamb?" Anne beckoned Lewis forward as the child murmured again some incoherent words. "What language is it?--I do not recognize the tongue." "It is Spanish," said Lewis. "Strange! Where did the child come from, Mrs. Melder?" The miller's wife repeated her story, and, promising to call at the house of the doctor on their way homeward, and send him up to the little patient, her visitors left her, and proceeded on their way, disturbed by no further incident, except in Anne's mind, by the strange excitement of interest with which this story moved her. She could not banish the stranger's pale face from her mind, nor forget the pitiful look of the little child, in whose soft features she thought she could trace some resemblance, moaning out its feeble complaint in that strange language, uncomprehended, and alone.