t."

"I dinna wonder ava at what ye say," responded Nelly. "If I were in
your place, a' that troubles you would trouble me. But there's naebody
without something to distress them; and we maun just look upon things
o' that kind as a _crook in our lot_, a something that maun be borne.
But, after a', woman, if the twa were to gang thegither, could ye no
come owre here? Ye have only him, and we have only her; the little
gear we hae maun a' gang to him at last; and, if the young folk could
live thegither in ane o' the places, the auld folk micht surely do the
same in the tither."

"Thank ye, Nelly--thank ye!" said Margaret; "ye're aye the same
guid-hearted creature yet. But a body's ain hame's aye kindly. And
yet, if sic a thing were to happen, I would rather come here, than
gang to ony freend I hae." As she uttered these words, she made an
involuntary motion forward, and would have fallen, had she not
supported herself by the wall.

"Dear me, Margaret, what's the matter wi' ye?" said Nelly, in a tone
of evident alarm.

"It's a dizziness i' my head, woman," was the reply. "I've never been
mysel since that illness I had afore the term. Thae curious turns come
owre me aye, noo and then," she continued, her voice sinking and
saddening as she spoke; "and, for the last six weeks, it's been borne
in upon me, that I'm no to be lang to the fore. Now, if I was taen
awa, Sandy would be sair to mean wi' naebody about the house but a
servant; and that gars me sometimes think I would maist like to see
him married to some carefu lass like your Jenny afore my head be laid
down."

"Wheesht, Margaret!" said the other; "never let thae thoughts come
owre ye, for there's an auld proverb that says, _thought can kill and
thought can cure_. And I doubt I've driven the joke owre far already.
But, though it's natural aneugh for young lasses to like to get
husbands, and natural aneugh, too, for their mithers to like to see
them weel married, I would ten times owre see our Jenny live and dee
without a man a'thegither, rather than see her married to the best man
on earth, if her marriage were to gie you real vexation, or be the
means o' shortenin your days."

"It's no that," said Margaret, in the same low solemn tone in which
she had before spoken--"it's no onything ye have said that has hurt
me, for I've thought about a' thae things afore. When I had that ill
turn afore Martinmas, when folk thought I was deein, I began to
consider wha would b