ese are added weeks of
wandering in quest of a habitation, the reader will hardly be surprised
when he is told that her animal strength was gone--her spirits sunk, and
despair seemed to be closing around her. With a frame completely worn
out, a head which ached, blistered feet, and, we might almost add, a
"bleeding heart," she sat by her fire one evening--her head resting on
her hand, and her eyes fixed upon her children, while sighs convulsed
her bosom. She wished to commit her little ones to the care of their
Maker; but such was the state of her mind, that she fancied she could
not perform even this duty, and the thought called forth another and a
deeper sigh. While she was thus employed, Nancy Black opened the door
unperceived, and, standing at her side, awoke her from her dream of
despondency by saying, in a half whispering, half faltering
voice--"Elspeth, dinna break your heart. I think I ken where you'll get
a house, noo. I was speaking about you, the day, to Geordie Chrighton,
at the school, an' he says they could soon mak a house o' their auld
barn; and that his faither will never hesitate"----

To this the mother was listening, and almost thinking the news too good
for being true, when the speaker was interrupted by some one coming
against the inner door of the apartment with such force as nearly to
break it. On hearing the noise, the widow rose to give the stranger
admittance; but he waited not for her services. Putting one hand to his
nose--the part which had produced the noise--and the other to the latch,
before another second had elapsed, George Chrighton stood in the middle
of the floor, panting from the rapidity of his march; and, without
taking time to recover breath, he began to deliver his message by
saying--"Elspeth, my father sent me owre to tell ye that, if ye want a
house, ye may get our auld barn. Jock's to bring a cartful o' clay--he's
to mak the cats the morn; I'm to bide at hame frae the school, an' carry
them in; an' my faither's to put up the lum. An'--what is't I was gaun
to say?--ou ay--tak it--tak it, Elspeth; an', if he'll no gie ye it for
naething, I'll keep a' the bawbees I get, to help ye to pay for't." Here
he paused, fairly out of breath. The substance of his message, however,
was delivered, and he now stood silent, and almost fearful of hearing
that she had already got a house.

The widow, bewildered by her own feelings, the excited manner of the
boy, and the intelligence which he