We are not done with the waifs even so far as known, and their number has never been recorded. It was a practice of Burke to wander out in the early mornings. He would have been seen pacing the solitude of the deserted streets even before cock-crow. Nor could any man tell the reason: it was not asked, not even speculated upon. Like the traces of sympathetic ink, the notice lay unverified, till the great disclosure, when it came up fresh into many minds. And it came up all at once, with the suspicion that he did not go those solitary rounds for contemplation, far less from remorse; a feeling which, so far as can be ascertained--for the pang of the wistful look of the dumb boy was suspected to be a mere trick of the prison confessional--never ruffled his pillow. The night-hawk goes to bed in the early morning, before the choir offer their song to the rising sun, and these catch no flies till he is far up in the heavens. The first surmise of the discovery of what had been doing in Log's lodgings sprang the suspicion with elastic rapidity, that these early walks were undertaken in prosecution of the old purpose, and specially stimulated by an interest in that institution--to be found, we believe, nowhere else--the cinder-women;[8] not singing-birds these, if he was not a night-hawk; but the osprey is as early on the long sands, when there is not to be seen there a living thing, except the gulls, as they pace so securely the edge of the sea. A very early riser in Edinburgh is impressed with the sight of these thin, haggard figures flitting from backet to backet in the great solitude. The only moving creatures in the long streets,--if you did not know they had any other object in view,--you would think that, being immured in the dark dens of the Old Town, and ashamed to shew their faces during the day, they crawl out to get a _glimpse_ of their old haunts, where, as unfortunates, (the greater number,) they once flaunted their charms, till they faded to the point of recoil. You would say, too, that they belonged neither to this world nor any other--mere pendencies, with no solidity to keep them on the earth, and no wings to take them from it--hopeless, too, and fearless, not from despair or passion, but from sheer inanity--glimmers, not lights, flickering at the end of wicks, with no oil except what they have imbibed long before. It was this prey that brought the prowler out so early in the morning; and he might have revelled in a field so fruitful long enough, without that risk of discovery which attended his other assaults. Friendless as they are, with years intervening since they were cast off, not only from society, but from those who once knew them,--some worshippers of beauty, perhaps,--there were none to inquire after them, scarcely any to miss them, except a sister straggler, who might wonder for a moment why a shadow had disappeared.