Accordingly, Mr. White of Mill’s Court in two days afterwards received a letter, informing him that John Cowie was the writer of the same, and that, if a reasonable consideration were held out to him, he would proceed to the northern metropolis, and there settle for ever a case which apparently had kept the newsmongers of Edinburgh in aliment for a length of time much exceeding the normal nine days.  Opportune and happily come in the very nick of time as the latter was—­for the delay allowed by the court had all but expired—­Mr. White saw the danger of promising anything which could be construed into a reward; but he could use other means of decoying the shy bird into his meshes; and these he used in his answer with such effect, that the man who could solve the mystery was in Edinburgh at the end of a week.  Nor was Mr. White unprepared to receive him, for he had previously got a commission to examine him and take his deposition:  but then an agent likes to know what a witness will say before he cites him; and the canny Scotchman, of all men in the world, is the most uncanny if brought to swear without some hope of being benefited by his oath.  There was, therefore, need of tact as well as delicacy; and Mr. White contrived in the first place to get his man to take up his quarters in the house in Mill’s Court.  A good supper and chambers formed the first demulcent—­we do not say bribe, because, by a legal fiction, all eating and drinking is set down to the score of hospitality.  A Scotch breakfast followed in the morning, at which were present Mrs. White and Mrs. Hislop, and our favourite Henney—­the last of whom, spite of all the efforts of her putative mother to keep from her the secret of her birth and prospects, had caught the infection of the general topic of the city, and wondered at her strange fortune, much as the paladin in the “Orlando” did when he got into the moon.  No man can precognosce like a woman, and here were three; but perhaps they might have all failed, had it not been for the natural art of Henney, who, out of pure goodness and gratitude, was so delighted with the man who had rolled her in a blanket and sent her to her beloved mother, as she still called her, that she promised to make him butler at Eastleys, and keep him comfortable all his days.

“Now,” said the cautious agent, “this promise of Henney’s is not made in consideration of your giving evidence for her before the commissioner.”

“I’m thinking of nothing but her face,” said John.  “I could swear to it out of a thousand; and Heaven bless her! for I think I am again in the once happy house in Meggat’s Land.”

And John pretended he was wiping a morsel of egg from his mouth, while the handkerchief was extended as far as the eye.

“A terrible night that was,” he continued.  “Mrs. Napier had been in labour all day; and when Mrs. Kemp told me to tell my master that my lady had been delivered of TWINS—­”

“Twins!” cried they all, as if moved by some sympathetic chord which ran from heart to heart.