name, showed that she had not forgotten the
husband of her youth.

Though this event must have been distressing to the widow, her distress
was aggravated when, on the second day from that on which her husband
had been interred, Mr. Black told her that, "as he had engaged another
servant, and required his house, she must remove at the term." The first
week of November was now past; the term was on the 22d of that month;
every house in the neighbourhood was either occupied, or already let for
the coming year; and this information came to the heart of Elspeth like
a thunder-shock. It was what she had never dreamed of, and never thought
of providing for. For herself, she might have been careless; but when
she reflected on her children, the feelings of the mother awoke in her
bosom, and made her, for the time, superior to despair. Day after day,
she went in quest of a hovel to shelter them from the rigour of the
coming winter, and night after night she returned without having found
one. It seemed as if Heaven had determined to make her a houseless
wanderer; for not a single untenanted habitation could she hear of. But
we must leave her to pursue her fruitless search, and attend, for a
little, to what was going on elsewhere.

One evening, after George Chrighton had returned from school, without
taking time to snatch his accustomed morsel of bread from the _aumry_,
he inquired for his father, and hurried off in quest of him. Having
discovered the object of his search in the stack-yard--"Father," cried
the boy, as soon as he was within ear-shot, "hae ye heard that Mr. Black
intends to make Elspeth Roger flit at the term; an' she canna get a
house for hersel an' her bairns in a' the country?"

"I did hear she was gaun to flit," said the old man, composedly; "but
whatfor canna she get a house?"

"I dinna ken," was the boy's eager reply; "but she's been seekin ane
this aught days, an mair; an' Nan Black says, if somebody doesna help
her, she maun tak her twa bairns, an' gang an' beg.--Noo, faither, could
we no do something? There's our auld barn: I would mak the clay-cats,[7]
an' we might pit up a lum; an' I would help Jock to howk a hole i' the
wa', an' it wouldna tak muckle to get a _windock_; an'--an'--I've
forgotten what I was gaun to say; but I'm sure we can pit up the lum;
an' the woman canna lie out by."

"I daresay ye're richt, laddie," said his father, after raising his
hat, and scratching the hinder part of his head