ll your mother's name was never mentioned, and when others spoke to
him of his daughter he would look round for fear of Daft Jeremy, who
was jealous of her they said.

"And your father--well, I misdoubt me that he was no better than he
should be. And my poor Bell had but a sorrowful time of it, following
the regiment, and at last left behind when they embarked for the
Indies. Then her father sent her word that having made her bed she
might lie on it. She had no rights on him or on his money.

"So a year or two slipped by, and maybe another five or six to the back
of that, and still no word of Bell. When, true as I am telling ye, who
but Bell brought back word of herself. Faith, and it was strange word!
I mind it clear as yesterday, for it was me, Nance Edgar, that am this
day old and done, who gat the first glint of her.

"It was a fine summer morn, early in June, and the clouds in the sky to
the east were just the colour of the first brier rosebuds in the hedge
by the roadside. I came up the brae like a Untie and as free o' care,
for my heart was light in those good days. There stood the cot of
Breckonside before me, shining white in the sun. For the miser, though
he spared most other things, never was a sparer of good whitewash. I
was just beginning to listen for the _click-clack_ of Hobby's shuttle,
when down by the waterside methought I saw a ferlie.

"Fegs, I said to myself that surely the old times had come back again,
and that the wee folk were disporting themselves once more in broad
daylight. For, on the grass by the burn a bonnie bit bairn ran hither
and thither waving its hands and laughing to the heavens for very
gladness. The night had been calm, a 'gossamer night,' as the gipsy
folk call it, and from hedge to hemlock, and from lowly bracken to tall
Queen o' the Meadow, the silver threads were stretched taut like the
cordage of some sea-going ship. The dew shone silver clear on ilka
silken strand, and the blobs o' it were like pearls and diamonds in the
morning sun.

"And aye the longer I stood the wilder the bairn ran and skipped
lightfoot as a fairy herself. 'Bonnie--bonnie--oh, bonnie!' she cried,
clapping her hands and laughing, 'see mither, mither, are they no unco
bonnie?'

"Then, by the side of the beck, as if, being wearied with travel, she
had set her down to take a drink of the caller burn water, I saw a
woman sit. She was beneath a bush of hazel, and her head was resting
tire