Lizzie looked much affronted. “He mayna maybe ken _English_,” she said, “but he may be a good scholar for a’ that. The tither maids just gape and cry La! when he takes the dictionary, and laugh at every word he says. He says they’ve nae education, thae English. He’s no’ a common servant-man like that man in blacks. He kens a’ the gentlemen’s business and what he’s wantin’, and everything about it. Eh,” cried Lizzie, opening her eyes wide, and glancing behind her with involuntary caution, “do you think yon would be _her_?” “Who?” said I. Was it possible that Lizzie knew? “Mem!” said Lizzie, with national unconscious skill and the deepest earnestness, “do you think there’s ony witches in this country, like what there was lang syne?” I was a little startled by the question; it brought back to my mind in an instant that extraordinary picture which had so great an effect on my own imagination,--the veiled woman at her knitting with the screen behind her chair. “Or the Evil Eye,” continued Lizzie, with a little gasp of visionary terror; “oh dinna say, if ye please, that I’m to bring _him_ into yon muckle room! for I would do some ill to the house, or her, or myself--and would be carried, and no ken what I was doing, if she put any of her cantrips upon our bairn!” “Lizzie!” cried I, “child, you forget what you are saying, and where you are!” “Oh no, no’ me!” cried Lizzie with vehement tears in her eyes; “but, Mem, it maun be her; there’s nae other leddy except our leddy in this house. And if I was never to say another word, she’s no canny; I ken she’s no canny, if it was only what Domenico says.” “In the name of wonder what does Domenico say?” cried I, driven to despair by the wild words in which there was no meaning. I don’t believe she knew herself what the meaning was. Lizzie stopped short and repeated, with a puzzled and troubled glance at me, “When it’s a long story it’s awfu’ fickle to ken,” she said, slowly; “but just that yon’s the leddy. Eh, I dinna ken what they ca’ her right, nor what ill-will they have at her; but ’Menico, he says--he says--Mem, you’ll no be angry, it wasna _me_,--he says she’s the deil himsel’.” “Lizzie,” said I, in considerable agitation, “try to recollect; Miss Milly wants to know; what _does_ Domenico say?” Lizzie blushed, and made a long pause again. “You see it’s the Dictionary, Mem,” she said, with a sigh. “When he’s tired looking up the words, he just gi’es a great burst out in the Italian, and thinks he’s explained it a’. It’s awfu’ fickle when it’s a lang story; but just it’s _her_; and eh! I’m sure she’s no canny by what Domenico says.”