All which secrecy has been followed by the unfortunate consequence that history nowhere records what took place in that secret room for an hour or two after the two women took up their station in the said blue-painted chamber. But this much we know, that the house was so silent that our favourite Tom could not have chosen a more auspicious evening for mousing for prey in place of mewing for play, even if he had had all the sagacity of the famous cats of Tartesia. As for Mrs Gilchrist and Robina, they could not have listened more zealously, we might even say effectually, if they had been gifted with ears as long as those of certain animals in Trophonia; and surely we cannot be wrong in saying they were successful listeners, when we are able to report that Mrs Gilchrist nipped the bare fleshy arm of Robina, as a sign that she heard what she wanted to hear. “That’s the scream o’ the wean!” said she. “Ay, and may the Lord be praised!” was the answer of Robina, in spite of the nip. But neither the one nor the other knew that that cry was verily worth two thousand merks to Maister Burgess Whitelaw, the father, who in a back-room sat in the deep pit of anxiety and heard nothing, and perhaps it was better that he didn’t, for that cry might have raised hopes--never to be realised--of the birth of a living son or daughter, who would by and by lisp in his ear the charmed word “Father”--of a dead wife’s recovery, after so terrible a trial to one so much wasted--of the saving of his fortune from the ruthless hands of his brother-in-law. But there is always some consolation for the miserable, and didn’t Mrs Janet’s favourite, even Tom himself, with his bright scarlet collar, come to him and sit upon his knee and look up in his face and purr so audibly, that one might have thought he was expressing sympathy and hope? So it is: nature is always laughing at her own work. Even as this pantomime was acting, Mrs Lythgow opened the door of the blue-painted chamber, and presenting a bundle to Mrs Gilchrist-- “The bairn is dead,” she whispered; “lay it on the table there out o’ the sight o’ its mother, who will not live lang enough even to see its dead face.” “And yet we heard it cry,” said Robina. “Poor dear innocent,” she added, as she peered among the folds of the flannel, “ye have had a short life.” “And no’ a merry ane,” added the gossip. “Did ye expect the bairn to laugh, ye fule woman that ye are?” was the reply of the howdie. “Come and help me wi’ the deeing mither.”