uttering to herself, now smiling vacantly to the
children as they pulled the strings of her toy or close cap, or twitched
her blue checked apron. With her distaff in her bosom, and her spindle
in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the old-fashioned
Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner. The
younger children, crawling among the feet of the elder, watched the
progress of grannies spindle as it twisted, and now and then ventured
to interrupt its progress as it danced upon the floor in those
vagaries which the more regulated spinning-wheel has now so universally
superseded, that even the fated Princess in the fairy tale might roam
through all Scotland without the risk of piercing her hand with a
spindle, and dying of the wound. Late as the hour was (and it was
long past midnight), the whole family were still on foot, and far from
proposing to go to bed; the dame was still busy broiling car-cakes
on the girdle, and the elder girl, the half-naked mermaid elsewhere
commemorated, was preparing a pile of Findhorn haddocks (that is,
haddocks smoked with green wood), to be eaten along with these relishing
provisions.

While they were thus employed, a slight tap at the door, accompanied
with the question, "Are ye up yet, sirs?" announced a visitor. The
answer, "Ay, ay,--come your ways ben, hinny," occasioned the lifting of
the latch, and Jenny Rintherout, the female domestic of our Antiquary,
made her appearance.

"Ay, ay," exclaimed the mistress of the family--"Hegh, sirs! can this be
you, Jenny?--a sight o' you's gude for sair een, lass."

"O woman, we've been sae ta'en up wi' Captain Hector's wound up by, that
I havena had my fit out ower the door this fortnight; but he's better
now, and auld Caxon sleeps in his room in case he wanted onything. Sae,
as soon as our auld folk gaed to bed, I e'en snodded my head up a bit,
and left the house-door on the latch, in case onybody should be wanting
in or out while I was awa, and just cam down the gate to see an there
was ony cracks amang ye."

"Ay, ay," answered Luckie Mucklebackit, "I see you hae gotten a' your
braws on; ye're looking about for Steenie now--but he's no at hame the
night; and ye'll no do for Steenie, lass--a feckless thing like you's no
fit to mainteen a man."

"Steenie will no do for me," retorted Jenny, with a toss of her head
that might have become a higher-born damsel; "I maun hae a man that can
mainteen his wife."

"Ou ay,