“I got aff her wet clothes,” continued she, “and gave her some strong drink to warm her, and then we considered what was to be dune.  My husband was for off to Edinburgh to inform on ye, even if there should hae been a drawing o’ the neck on’t; but Janet cried, and entreated baith him and me to keep the thing quiet.  She said she couldna gae back to you; and as for getting you punished, she couldna bear the thought o’t.  And then we a’ thought what a disgrace it would be to our family if it were thought that my sister had been attempted to be murdered by her husband.  We knew weel enough ye would say she had fallen in by accident; and when afterwards we heard that ye had buried a body that had been found in the loch, we made up our minds as to what we would do.  We just agreed to keep Janet under her maiden name.  Nane in Glasgow had ever seen her before, and her ain sorrows kept her within doors, so that the secret wasna ill to keep.  Years afterwards, my husband was ta’en from me, and Janet and I came, about twa months syne, to live at Juniper Green, wi’ John Paterson, my husband’s brother, wha had offered us a hame.”

“And is Janet there now?” cried Tammas, impatiently.

“Ay,” continued Mrs. Paterson; “but, alas! she’s no what she was.  She gets at times out o’ her reason, and will be that way for days thegether.  The doctor has a name for it ower lang for my tongue, but it tells naething but what we ken ower weel.  When in thae fits she thinks she is here in the Bow, and living with you, and working and moiling in the house just as she used to do langsyne.  Mairower, and that troubles us maist ava, she will be out when the reason’s no in, so that we are obliged to watch her.  Five days syne she was aff in the morning before daylight, and even so late as this morning she played us the same trick; whaur she gaed we couldna tell, but I had some suspicion she was here.”

“Ay,” replied Mr. Dodds, as he opened his eyes very wide; “she was here wi’ a vengeance.”

Thus Mrs. Paterson’s story was finished; and our legend of the Brownie, more veritable, we opine, than that of Bodsbeck, is also drawing to a conclusion.  Tammas, after a period of meditation, more like one of Janet’s hallucinations than a fit of rational thinking, asked his sister-in-law whether she thought that Janet, in the event of her getting quit of her day-dreams, would consent to live with him again.  To which question she answered that she was not certain; for that Janet, when in her usual state of mind, was still wroth against him for the attempt to take away her life; but she added that she had no objection, seeing he was penitent, to give him an opportunity to plead for himself.  She even went further, and agreed to use her influence to bring about a reconciliation.  It was therefore agreed between them that the sister should call again when Janet had got quit of her temporary derangement, and Thomas might follow up this intimation