y would not ask
her about Meg.

"Duncan had been very poorly all day," Elsie continued. "It poured
with rain the first day we ran away, and he got wet through. We had
to lie on the floor of the loft, with a sack under us, in all our wet
things. Mrs. Ferguson took away my frock and jacket, and Duncan's
coat, to dry, but she never gave them back, so I think Duncan got
cold, and he was very frightened and hungry, so it seemed to make him
ill. The lady was very angry about it, but she said afterwards that
it didn't matter much, and it would do just as well if she were to
leave him behind in Edinburgh."

"You are not answering my question," the magistrate reminded her.
"Where did you go that night?"

"They took us to a shop--a newspaper shop. It was a very high house,
and there were lodgers. We were taken into an attic up at the top,
and left by ourselves. In the night Duncan was very bad in his head,
and screamed and jumped about, and in the morning I told Mrs.
Donaldson that we must go to the hospital, for I was afraid Duncan
would die. No one attended to him at all. She said we should, and we
got into a carriage; but when I got out, and thought we were going to
ask the people to take Duncan in, the other one came up and pushed me
into the train before I knew anything about it."

"That is a strange story," the old gentleman remarked, looking
searchingly into Elsie's face. He then asked her a great many
questions about it, as if he hardly believed what she had told him,
but Elsie persisted in her statements.

"Did you hear the name of the man who kept the shop?" he asked.

Elsie thought a moment. "Mrs. Donaldson told Meg to tell Andrew to
write, and let us know how Duncan was. I don't know if she meant
him."

"Ah! and who was Meg?"

Elsie felt ready to cry with vexation. "She came in the carriage to
carry Duncan," she replied quickly. "I think she was a servant."

"Now, can you describe this house into which you were taken?"

Elsie drew quite a breath of relief to think she had escaped so well.
"We had to go down a lot of steps before we got to it," she replied,
"and I remember there was a flesher next door."

"You mean a butcher, and the house was a very high one, and the man's
name, you think, was Andrew. Well, that is very good as far as it
goes. Did you pass the Tolbooth in driving to the station?"

"I don't know. I shouldn't have known it if I had."

"Well, well, it seems you cannot tell us much about