"She tauld me that mornin that she weel kent she wouldna lang be a trouble to onybody. The day afore had been Sabbath, an' every Sabbath mornin, for the last ten years, her worthy neebor the elder, whom they had buried only four days afore, used to call on her, in the passing on his way to the kirk. 'Come awa, Elspat,' he would say; an' she used to be aye decent an' ready; for she liked his conversation; an' they aye gaed thegither to the kirk. She had been contracted, when a young lass, to a brither o' the elder's--a stout, handsome lad; but he had been ca'ed suddenly awa, atween the contract an' the marriage, an' Elspat, though she had afterwards mony a guid offer, had lived single for his sake. Weel, on the very mornin afore, just sax days after the elder's death, an' four after his burial, when Elspat was sittin dowie aside the fire, thinkin' o' her guid auld neebor, the cry cam to the door just as it used to do; but, though the voice was the same, the words were a wee different. 'Elspat,' it said, 'mak ready an' come awa.' She rose hastily to the window, an' there, sure enough, was the elder turning the corner in his Sunday's bonnet an' his Sunday's coat. An' weel did she ken, she said, the meanin o' his call, and kindly did she tak it. An' if it was but God's wull that she suld hae enough to put her decently under the ground without going in debt to ony one, she would be weel content. She had already the linen for the dead-dress, she said; for she had span it for the purpose afore her contract wi' William, an' she had the whisky, too, for the wake; but she had naething anent the coffin an' the bedral. "Weel, we took our breakfast, an' I did my best to comfort the puir body; but she looked very down-hearted for a' that. Aboot the middle o' the day, in cam the minister's boy wi' a letter. It was directed to his master, he said; but it was a' for Elspat; an' there was a five-pound note in it. It was frae a man who had left the country, mony, mony a year afore, a guid deal in her faither's debt. You would hae thought the puir thing wad hae grat her een out when she saw the money; but never was money mair thankfully received, or taen mair directly frae Heaven. It set her aboon the warld, she said; an' coming at the time it did, an estate o' a thousand a-year wadna be o' mair use to her. Next mornin she didna rise, for her strength had failed her at ance, though she felt nae meikle pain, an' she sent me to get the note changed, an' to leave twenty shillings o't wi' the wright for a decent coffin, like her mither's, an' five shillings mair wi' the bedral, an' to tak in necessaries for a sick-bed wi' some o' the lave. Weel, I did that; an' there's still twa pounds o' the note yonder in the little cupboard.