hands fell apart; and Nanny Swinton, who was about her
housewifery in the cupboard off the lady's parlour, heard every word,
and trembled at the pause.

"Your providing is not to buy," continued the mistress of the
aristocratic family, whose attendance was so scanty and their wants so
ill supplied that even in necessaries they were sometimes pinched;
"we've but to bid the minister and them that are allied to us in the
town, and Nanny will scour the posset dish, and bring out the big Indian
bowl, and heap fresh rose-leaves in the sweet-pots. You'll wear my
mother's white brocade that she first donned when she became a Leslie,
sib to Rothes--no a bit housewife of a south-country laird. She was a
noble woman, and you're but a heather lintie of a lass to come of a good
kind. So God bless you, bairn; ye'll tak the blast of wind and
gang."

As if the benediction had loosened the arrested tongue, Nelly burst
out--"Oh, mother, mother! no."

Lady Carnegie, in her own person, had looked upon death with unblenching
front, and had disowned her only son because, in what appeared to others
a trifle, he had opposed her law. Nor did a muscle of her marked face
now relax; her occupation went on without a check; she did not deign to
show surprise or displeasure, although her voice rose in harsh, ironical
emphasis--

"Nelly Carnegie, what's your will?"

"Not that man, mother; not that fearsome man!" pleaded Nelly, with
streaming eyes and beseeching tones, her high spirit for the moment
broken; her contempt gone, only her aversion and terror urging a
hearing--"The lad that's blate and dull till he's braggit by his
fellows, and then starker than ony carle, wild like a north-country
cateran; even the haill bench o' judges would not stand to conter him."

"He'll need his stiff temper; I couldna thole a man but had a mind of
his own, my dear," ejaculated Lady Carnegie in unexpected, clear, cherry
accents, as if her daughter's extremity was diversion to her.

"Oh, spare me, spare me, mother," Nelly began again.

"Hooly and fairly, Nelly Carnegie," interrupted the mother, still
lightly and mockingly, "who are you that ye should pick and choose? What
better man will speer your price? or think ye that I've groats laid by
to buy a puggy or a puss baudrons for my maiden lady?"

"I'll work my fingers to the bone, mother; my brother Hugh will not see
me want."

"Eat bite or sup of his victuals, or mint a Carnegie's working to me
again, N