“Were you ever in a cab before?” asked Miss Mackenzie.

“Na, niver,” replied Baubie in a rapt tone and without looking at her questioner, so intent was she on staring out of the windows, between both of which she divided her attention impartially.

They were driving down the Mound, and the outlook, usually so far-reaching from that vantage-ground, was bounded by a thick sea-fog that the east wind was carrying up from the Forth and dispensing with lavish hands on all sides.  The buildings had a grim, black look, as if a premature old age had come upon them, and the black pinnacles of the Monument stood out sharply defined in clear-cut, harsh distinctness against the floating gray background.  There were not many people stirring in the streets.  It was a depressing atmosphere, and Miss Mackenzie observed before long that Baubie either seemed to have become influenced by it or that the novelty of the cab-ride had worn off completely.  They crossed the Water of Leith, worn to a mere brown thread owing to the long drought, by Stockbridge street bridge, and a few yards from it found themselves before a gray stone house separated from the street by a grass-plot surrounded by a stone wall:  inside the wall grew chestnut and poplar trees, which in summer must have shaded the place agreeably, but which this day, in the cold gray mist, seemed almost funereal in their gloomy blackness.  The gate was opened from within the wall as soon as Miss Mackenzie rang, and she and Baubie walked up the little flagged path together.  As the gate clanged to behind them Baubie looked back involuntarily and sighed.

“Don’t fear, lassie,” said her guide:  “they will be very kind to you here.  And it will be just a good home for you.”

It may be questioned whether this promise of a good home awoke any pleasing associations or carried with it any definite meaning to Baubie Wishart’s mind.  She glanced up as if to show that she understood, but her eyes turned then and rested on the square front of the little old-fashioned gray house with its six staring windows and its front circumscribed by the wall and the black poplars and naked chestnuts, and she choked down another sigh.

“Now, Mrs. Duncan,” Miss Mackenzie was saying to a comfortably-dressed elderly woman, “here’s your new girl, Baubie Wishart.”

“Eh, ye’ve been successful then, Miss Mackenzie?”

“Oh dear, yes:  the sheriff made no objection.  And now, Mrs. Duncan, I hope she will be a good girl and give you no trouble.—­Come here, Baubie, and promise me to do everything you are told and obey Mrs. Duncan in everything.”

“Yes, mem,” answered Bauble reverently, almost solemnly.

There seemed to be no necessity for further exhortation.  Baubie’s demeanor promised everything that was hoped for or wanted, and, perfectly contented, Miss Mackenzie turned her attention to the minor details of wardrobe, etc.:  “That frock is good enough if it were washed.  She must get shoes and stockings; and then underwear, too, of some sort will be wanted.”