it had been gold or diamonds. She was a friendly body everybody testified, and known up the water and down the water as always serviceable and always cheery. When there was any gossip going on of an interesting nature, some one in Lasswade or the neighbourhood always found opportunity of taking a walk up to the Hewan, and a cup of tea with old Jean, who was every one’s friend. On such occasions Mrs Moffatt carefully skimmed everything that looked like cream from the milk which had been standing in a bowl for this purpose since the morning, and put on her little kettle, and took out her best china, and even prepared some “toasted breed” over and above the oat-cakes, which were her usual fare. The window of the old woman’s nest looked out upon a dark wilderness of trees, which descended down a steep bank to the upper Esk, and shut out any view. Her door was generally open, as well as the window, so that the rustling of the trees and the singing of the kettle kept pleasant company. Her boarded floor was as clean as soap and water could make it, and her hearth well swept and bright; a huge rug, made by her own hands (for she was a capable old wife) out of strips of cloth of all colours, looked cosy before the fire. Her bed, like a berth in a ship, appeared behind, with a very bright bit of chintz for curtains, and covered with a gay patchwork quilt. She had some brilliantly-coloured pictures on the walls--a wonderful little boy with big eyes and a curly dog, and a little girl with long curls and a doll, not more staring and open-eyed than herself. The old lady thought they were like “our wee Johnnie and Phemie down the town,” and found them “grand company.” She had some brass candlesticks and a glorious tea-caddy on the mantelpiece, and such a tea-tray set up against the wall as would have made all other ornamentation pale. “The worst o’t is, ye maun be awfu’ solitary, especially in the winter time, when there’s naebody ben the house, and few on the road that can help it,” her friends would say. “Me solitary!” said old Jean. “I’m thankful to my Maker I never was ane that was lanesome. I’m fond o’ company, real fond o’ company--but for a while now and then it’s no’ that ill to have your ain thoughts. And then there’s the hens, poor things, aye canty and neighbour-like, troubling their heads about their sma’ families, just as I used to do mysel’--and Grumphy yonder’s just a great diversion; and when it’s a cauld night, and I shut to the door, there’s the fire aye stirring and birring, and the wee nest as warm as can be, and the auld clock, tick, tick, aye doing its duty, poor thing, though it might be tired this hunder year or twa it’s been at it; and there’s a hantle reading in the ‘Courant,’ though maybe the ‘Scotsman’s bigger, and I’m on the Leeberal side mysel’. Toots! solitary! there’s naebody less solitary than me.”