six per cent., lying in the hands o’ a gentleman o’ immense property.  Everybody believed him to be as sure as the bank.  Scores o’ folk had money in his hands.  The interest was paid punctually, and I hadna the least suspicion.  Weel, I was looking ower the papers one morning at breakfast, and I happened to glance at the list o’ bankrupts (a thing I’m no in the habit o’ doing), when, mercy me! whose name should I see but the very gentleman’s that had my twa thousand pounds!  I had the paper in one hand and a saucer in the other.  The saucer and the coffee gaed smash upon the hearth!  I trembled frae head to foot.  ’Oh David! what’s the matter?’ cried Jeannie.  ‘Matter!’ cried I; ’matter!  I’m ruined!—­we’re a’ ruined!’ But it’s o’ nae use dwelling on this.  The fallow didna pay eighteenpence to the pound; and there was three thousand gaen out o’ my five!  It was nae use, wi’ a young family, to talk o’ living on the interest o’ our money now.  ‘We maun tak’ a farm,’ says I; and baith Jeannie and her mother saw there was naething else for it.  So I took a farm which lay partly in the Lammermoors and partly in the Merse.  It took the thick end o’ eight hundred pounds to stock it.  However, we were very comfortable in it; I found mysel’ far mair at hame than I had been in Edinburgh; for I had employment for baith mind and hands, and Jeannie very soon made an excellent farmer’s wife.  Auld grannie, too, said she never had been sae happy; and the bairns were as healthy as the day was lang.  We couldna exactly say that we were making what ye may ca’ siller, yet we were losing nothing, and every year laying by a little.  There was a deepish burn ran near the onstead.  We had been about three years in the farm, and our youngest lassie was about nine years auld.  It was the summer time, and she had been paidling in the burn, and sooming feathers and bits o’ sticks; I was looking after something that had gaen wrang about the threshin’ machine, when I heard an unco noise get up, and bairns screamin’.  I looked out, and I saw them runnin’ and shoutin’—­’Miss Jeannie!  Miss Jeannie!’ I rushed out to the barnyard.  ‘What is’t, bairns?’ cried I.  ’Miss Jeannie!  Miss Jeannie!’ said they, pointing to the burn.  I flew as fast as my feet could carry me.  The burn, after a spate on the hills, often cam awa in a moment wi’ a fury that naething could resist.  The flood had come awa upon my bairn; and there, as I ran, did I see her bonnie yellow hair whirled round and round, sinking out o’ my sight, and carried awa doun wi’ the stream.  There was a linn about thirty yards frae where I saw her, and oh! how I rushed to snatch a grip o’ her before she was carried ower the rocks!  But it was in vain—­a moment sooner, and I might hae saved her; but she was hurled ower the precipice when I was within an arm’s length, and making a grasp at her bit frock!  My poor little Jeannie was baith felled and drowned.  I plunged into the wheel below the linn, and got her out in my arms.  I ran wi’ her to the house,