"There was a terrible stir in the house that night," she began. "The nurse, wha is yet living in Lochend Close, and Mrs. Kemp the howdie, wha is dead, were wi' my lady; and John Cowie, the butler, was busy attending our master, who had been the haill day in ane o' his dark fits, for we heard him calling for Cowie in a fierce voice ever and again; and his step sounded ower our heads upon the floor as he walked back and fore in his wrath. Then I was sent for you, and brought you, and you'll mind how Cowie bade me go along; but I had mair sense, for I listened at the door, and heard what the butler said to ye when he gied ye the bairn; and think ye I didna see ye carry it along the passage as ye left? Sae far I could understand; but when I heard nurse say the bairn was dead, Mrs. Kemp say the bairn was still-born, and Cowie declare it was better it was dead and awa, I couldna comprehend this ava; nor do I weel yet; but we just thought that as there was something wrang between master and my lady, he wanted us to believe that the bairn was dead, for very shame o' being thought the father, when maybe he wasna. And then he was so guid to me and my neighbour Anne Dickson,--ye mind o' her--puir soul, she's dead too,--that we couldna, for the very heart o' us, say a word o' what we knew. But now when Mr. Napier is dead, and the brother o' that wicked Jezebel, Isbel Napier, may try to take the property frae Henney, wha I aye kenned as a Napier, with the very nose and een o' the father, I have spoken out; and may the Lord gie the right to whom the right is due!" "It's all right," said the writer, after he had jotted with a pencil the evidence of Jean, as well as that of the nurse; "and if we could find this John Cowie, we might so fortify the orphan's rights, as to defy Miss Napier and her brother, and Mr. Dallas, and all the witnesses they can bring." "Ay," continued the woman, "but I doubt if you'll catch him. He left Mr. Napier's service about ten years ago, and I never heard mair o' him." "Nor I either," said Mrs. Hislop. "Well, we must search for him," added Mr. White; "for that man alone, so far as I can see, is he who will unravel this strange business." And thus the day's work finished. The writer parted for Mill's Court, and Mrs. Hislop, filled with doubts, hopes, and anxieties, sought her humble dwelling in Toddrick's Wynd, where Henney waited for her with all the solicitude of a daughter; but a word did not escape her lips that might carry to the girl's mind a suspicion that the golden cord of their supposed relationship ran a risk of being severed, even with the eventual condition that one, if not both of the divisions, would be transmuted into a string of diamonds.