questions as these—­“Wat ye wha she is?” “Is she ony great body?” “Hae ye ony guess what brought her here?” and, “Is yon bonny creature her ain bairn?” But to these and sundry other interrogatories, the important hostess gave for answer, “Hoot, I hae nae time to haver the noo.”  She stopped at a small, but certainly the most genteel house in the village, occupied by a Mrs. Douglas, who, in the country phrase, was a very douce, decent sort of an old body, and the widow of a Cameronian minister.  In the summer season Mrs. Douglas let out her little parlour to lodgers, who visited the village to seek health, or for a few weeks’ retirement.  She was compelled to do this from the narrowness of her circumstances; for, though she was a “clever-handed woman,” as her neighbours said, “she had a sair fecht to keep up an appearance onyway like the thing ava.”  In a few minutes Mrs. Douglas, in a clean cap, a muslin kerchief round her neck, a quilted black bombazine gown, and snow-white apron, followed the landlady up to the inn.  In a short time she returned, the stranger lady leaning upon her arm, and the lovely child leaping like a young lamb before them.  Days and weeks passed away, and the good people of Thorndean, notwithstanding all their surmises and inquiries, were no wiser regarding their new visitor; all they could learn was, that she was the widow of a young officer, who was one of the first that fell when Britain interfered with the French Revolution; and the mother and her child became known in the village by the designation of “Mrs. Douglas’s twa pictures!”—­an appellation bestowed on them in reference to their beauty.

The beautiful destroyer, however, lay in the mother’s heart, now paling her cheeks like the early lily, and again scattering over them the rose and the rainbow.  Still dreaming of recovery, about eight months after her arrival in Thorndean, death stole over her like a sweet sleep.  It was only a few moments before the angel hurled the fatal shaft, that the truth fell upon her soul.  She was stretching forth her hand to her work-basket, her lovely child was prattling by her knee, and Mrs. Douglas smiling like a parent upon both, striving to conceal a tear while she smiled, when the breathing of her fair guest became difficult, and the rose, which a moment before bloomed upon her countenance, vanished in a fitful streak.  She flung her feeble arms around the neck of her child, who now wept upon her bosom, and exclaimed, “Oh! my Elizabeth, who will protect you now, my poor, poor orphan?” Mrs. Douglas sprang to her assistance.  She said she had much to tell, and endeavoured to speak; but a gurgling sound only was heard in her throat; she panted for breath; the rosy streaks, deepening into blue, came and went upon her cheeks like the midnight dances of the northern lights; her eyes flashed with a momentary brightness more than mortal, and the spirit fled.  The fair orphan still clung to the neck, and kissed the yet warm lips of her dead mother.