At the mention of this Nanny turned about, and after a wild searching stare in her young mistress’s face, while every nerve of her frame seemed to shrink from the recollection of the disclosures she feared she had made, she answered as follows, in a deep and tremulous tone:— “That was atween God and me—There was neither language nor sound there for the ear o’ flesh!—It was unfair!—It was unfair!—Ye are mistress here, and ye keep the keys o’ the aumbry, the kitchen, the ha’, an’ the hale house; but wi’ the secret keys o’ the heart and conscience ye hae naething to do!—the keys o’ the sma’est portal that leads to heaven or hell are nane o’ yours; therefore, what ye hae done was unfair. If I chose, sinful and miserable as I am, to converse with my God about the dead as if they war living, an’ of the living as if they war dead, what’s that to you? Or if I likit to take counsel of that which exists only in my own mind, is the rackle hand o’ steelrife power to make a handle o’ that to grind the very hearts of the just and the good, or turn the poor wasted frame o’ eild and resignation on the wheel?—Lack–a–day, my dear bairn, I’m lost again! Ye canna an’ ye maunna forgie me now. Walth’s dear, an’ life’s dearer—but sin’ it maun be sae, twal o’clock sanna find me aneath your roof—there shall naebody suffer for harbouring poor auld Nanny—she has seen better days, an’ she hopes to see better anes again; but it’s lang sin’ the warld’s weel an’ the warld’s wae came baith to her alike. I maun e’en bid ye fareweel, my bonny bairn, but I maun tell ye ere I gae that ye’re i’the _braid way_. Ye hae some good things about ye, and O, it is a pity that a dear sweet soul should be lost for want o’ light to direct! How can a dear bairn find the right way wi’ its een tied up? But I maun haud my tongue an’ leave ye—I wad fain greet, but I hae lost the gate o’t, for the fountain–head has been lang run dry—Weel, weel—it’s a’ ower!—nae mair about it—How’s this the auld sang gaes? When the well runs dry then the rain is nigh, The heavens o’ earth maun borrow, An’ the streams that stray thro’ the wastes the day, May sail aboon the morrow. Then dinna mourn, my bonny bird, I downa bide to hear ye; The storm may blaw, and the rain may fa’, But nouther sal come near ye. O dinna weep for the day that’s gane, Nor on the present ponder, For thou shalt sing on the laverock’s wing, An’ far away beyond her.”