e, they are all marked with a C."

"Sae are a' the spoons in Argyle, an' the half o' them in Edinburgh I
think. A C is a very common letter, an' so are a' the names that begin
wi't. Lay them by, lay them by, an' gie the poor woman her spoons
again. They are marked wi' her ain name, an' I hae little doubt they
are hers, an' that she has seen better days."

"Ah, God bless her heart!" sighed the prisoner; and that blessing was
echoed in the breathings of many a feeling breast.

"Did you ever see this gown before, think you?"

"I hae seen ane very like it."

"Could you not swear that gown was your mistress's once?"

"No, unless I saw her hae't on, an' kend that she had paid for't. I am
very scrupulous about an oath. Like is an ill mark. Sae ill indeed that
I wad hardly swear to anything."

"But you say that gown is very like one your mistress used to wear."

"I never said sic a thing. It is like one I hae seen her hae out airing
on the hay raip i' the back green. It is very like ane I hae seen Mrs.
Butler in the Grass Market wearing too: I rather think it is the same.
Bless you, sir, I wadna swear to my ain forefinger, if it had been as
lang out o' my sight an', brought in an' laid on that table."

"Perhaps you are not aware, girl, that this scrupulousness of yours is
likely to thwart the purposes of justice, and bereave your mistress of
property to the amount of a thousand merks." (From the Judge.)

"I canna help that, my lord: that's her look-out. For my part, I am
resolved to keep a clear conscience, till I be married, at any rate."

"Look over these things and see if there is any one article among them
which you can fix on as the property of your mistress."

"No ane o' them, sir, no ane o' them. An oath is an awfu' thing,
especially when it is for life or death. Gie the poor woman her things
again, an' let my mistress pick up the next she finds: that's my
advice."

When Mrs. Logan came into the box, the prisoner groaned and laid down
her head. But how she was astonished when she heard her deliver herself
something to the following purport--That, whatever penalties she was
doomed to abide, she was determined she would not bear witness against
a woman's life, from a certain conviction that it could not be a woman
who broke her house. "I have no doubt that I may find some of my own
things there," added she, "but, if they were found in her possession,
she has been made a tool, or the dupe, of an infernal set,