as if she had been engaged in solving some problem great to her, however small it might seem to grown-up infants.  As for sleeping under the weight of so much responsibility, it might seem to be out of the question; and so, verily, it was; for her little body, acted on by the big thoughts, was moved from one side to another all night, so that she never slept a wink, still thinking and thinking, in her unutterable grief, of poor Mary, her father’s criminal passiveness, and that most occult remedy which so completely engrossed her mind.

But certainly it was the light of morning for which sister Annie sighed; and when it came glinting in at the small window, she was up and beginning to dress, all the while listening lest the servant or any other one in the house should know she was up at that hour.  Having completed her toilet, she slipped down stairs, and having got to the lobby, she was provident enough to lay hold of an umbrella, for she suspected the elements as being in league against her.  Thus equipped, she crept out by the back door, and having got thus free, she hurried along, never looking behind her till she came to the main road to Edinburgh, when she mounted the umbrella—­one used by her father, and so large that it was more like a main-sheet than a covering suitable to so small a personage; so it behoved, that if she met any other “travellers on purpose bent,” the moving body must have appeared to be some small tent on its way to a fair, carried by the proprietor thereof, of whom no more could be seen but the two short toddling legs, and the hem of the black riding-hood.  But what cared Annie?  She toiled along; the miles were long in comparison of the short legs, but then there was a large purpose in that little body, in the view of which miles were of small account, however long a time it might take those steps to go over them.  Nor was it any drawback to all this energy, concentrated in so small a bulk, that she had had no breakfast.  Was the dying sister Mary able to take any breakfast? and why should Annie eat when Mary, who did all she did—­and she always did everything that sister Mary did—­could not?  The argument was enough for our little logician.

By the time she reached, by those short steps of hers, the great city, it was half-past eleven, and she had before her still a great deal to accomplish.  She made out, after considerable wanderings, the street signalized above all streets by that wonderful bird; but after she got into it, the greater difficulty remained of finding the figure itself, whereto there was this untoward obstacle, that it was still drizzling in the thick Scotch way of concrete drops of mist, and the umbrella which she held over her head was so large that no turning it aside would enable her to see under the rim at such an angle as would permit her scanning so elevated a position, and so there was nothing for it but to draw it down.  But even this was a task—­heavy as the mainsheet was with rain, and rattling in a considerable wind—­almost beyond her strength; and if it hadn’t been that a kindly personage who saw the little maid’s difficulty gave her assistance, she might not have been able to accomplish it.  And now, with the heavy article in her hand, she peered about for another half-hour, till at length her gladdened eye fell upon the mystic symbol.