“Yes,” continued the good lady, “I must look after her.”

“Poor little atom!  I suppose you will find out where the parents live, and send the school-board officer to them.  That is the usual thing, is it not?  I must go, Miss Mackenzie.  Good-bye for to-day.  And do tell me what you settle for her.”

Miss Mackenzie promised, and her friend took her departure.

“Go and sit by the fire, Baubie Wishart, for a little, and then I shall be ready to talk to you.”

Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the end of the fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the on-goings about her with the stoicism of a red Indian.  She showed no symptom of wonder at anything, and listened to the disquisitions of Miss Mackenzie and the matron as to the proper adjustment of parts—­“bias,” “straights,” “gathers,” “fells,” “gussets” and “seams,” a whole new language as it unrolled its complexities before her—­with complacent indifference.

At last, all the web of cotton being cut up, the time came to go.  Miss Mackenzie buttoned up her sealskin coat, and pulling on a pair of warm gloves beckoned Baubie, who rose with alacrity:  “Where do your father and mother live?”

“Kennedy’s Lodgings, in the Gressmarket, mem.”

“I know the place,” observed Miss Mackenzie, to whom, indeed, most of these haunts were familiar.  “Take me there now, Baubie.”

They set out together.  Baubie trotted in front, turning her head, dog-fashion, at every corner to see if she were followed.  They reached the Grassmarket at last, and close to the corner of the West Bow found an entry with the whitewashed inscription above it, “Kennedy’s Lodgings.”  Baubie glanced round to see if her friend was near, then vanished upward from her sight.  Miss Mackenzie kilted her dress and began the ascent of the stairs, the steps of which, hollowed out as they were by the tread of centuries of human feet, afforded a not too safe footing.

Arrived at the third floor, she found Baubie waiting for her, breathless and panting.

“It’s here,” she said—­“the big kitchen, mem.”

A long, narrow passage lay before them, off which doors opened on all sides.  Precipitating herself at one of these doors, Baubie Wishart, who could barely reach the latch, pushed it open, giving egress to a confusion of noises, which seemed to float above a smell of cooking, in which smell herrings and onions contended for the mastery.

It was a very large room, low-ceilinged, but well enough lighted by a couple of windows, which looked into a close behind.  The walls had been whitewashed once upon a time, but the whitewash was almost lost to view under the decorations with which it was overlaid.  These consisted of pictures cut out of the illustrated weekly papers or milliners’ books.  All sorts of subjects were represented:  fashion-plates hung side by side with popular preachers and statesmen,