Nearly a week had thus passed, and it was Sabbath morning.  The tinsmiths’ hammers were silent, the noisy games of the urchins were hushed, the street of the Bow resounded only occasionally to the sound of a foot—­all Edinburgh was, in short, under the solemnity enjoined by the Calvinism so much beloved by the people; and surely the day might have been supposed to be held in such veneration by ministering spirits, sent down to earth to execute the purposes of Heaven, that no visit of the feared shadow would disturb even the broken rest of the wicked.  So perhaps thought our couple; but their thoughts belied them, for just again, as the dawn broke over the tops of the high houses, the well-known tirl was heard at the door.  Who was to open it?  For days the mind of the wife had been made up.  She would not face that figure again; no, if all the powers of the world were there to compel her; and as for Thomas, conscience had reduced the firmness of a man who once upon a time could kill to a condition of fear and trembling.  Yet terrified as he was, he considered that he was here under the obligation to obey powers even higher than his conscience, and disobedience might bring upon him some evil greater than that under which he groaned.  So up he got, trembling in every limb, and proceeding to the door, opened the same.  What he saw may be surmised, but what he felt no one ever knew, for the one reason that he had never the courage to tell it, and for the other that no man or woman was ever placed in circumstances from which they could draw any conclusion which could impart even a distant analogy.  This much, however, was known:  Thomas retreated instantly to bed, and the visitor, in the same suit of hodden-grey, again entered, passed the bolt, took off her plaid, hung it up, and began the duties which she thought were suited to the day and the hour.  So much being thus alike, the couple in the bedroom no doubt augured a repetition of the old process.  They were right, and they were wrong.  Their eyes were fixed upon her, and watched her movements; but the watch was that of the charmed eye, which is said to be without motive.  They saw her once more go deliberately and tentily through the old process of putting on the fire, and they heard again the application of the bellows, every blast succeeding another with the regularity of a clock, until the kitchen was illuminated by the rising flame.  This was all that could be called a repetition; for in place of going for the porridge goblet, she went direct for the tea-kettle, into which she poured a sufficient quantity of water, saying the while to herself, “Tammas maun hae his tea breakfast on Sabbath morning”—­words which Thomas, as he now lay quaking in bed, knew very well he had heard before many a time and oft.  Nor were the subsequent acts less in accordance with the old custom of the dwelling.  There was no sweeping of the floor or scouring of pans on the sacred morning; in place of all which she had something else to do, for