MALCOLM.

CHAPTER I.

MISS HORN.

"NA, na; I hae nae feelin's, I'm thankfu' to say. I never kent ony guid come o' them. terrible sicht i' the gait."

They're a

"Naebody ever thoucht o' layin' 't to yer chairge,

mem."

"'Deed, I aye had eneuch adu to du the thing I had to du, no to say the thing 'at naebody wad du but mysel'. I hae had nae leisur' for feelin's an' that," insisted Miss Horn.

But here a heavy step descending the stair just outside the room attracted her attention, and, checking the flow of her speech perforce, with three ungainly strides she reached the landing.

Watty Witherspail! Watty!" she called after

the footsteps down the stair.

"Yes, mem," answered a gruff voice from below.

VOL. I.

B

"Watty, whan ye fess the bit boxie, jist pit a hemmer an' a puckle nails i' yer pooch to men' the hen-hoose-door. The tane maun be atten't till as weel's the tither."

"The bit boxie" was the coffin of her third cousin, Griselda Campbell, whose body lay in the room on her left hand as she called down the stair. Into that on her right Miss Horn now re-entered, to rejoin Mrs. Mellis, the wife of the principal draper in the town, who had called ostensibly to condole with her, but really to see the corpse.

"Aih! she was taen yoong!" sighed the visitor, with long-drawn tones and a shake of the head, implying that therein lay ground of complaint, at which poor mortals dared but hint.

"No that yoong," returned Miss Horn. "She was upo' the edge o' aucht an' thirty."

"Weel, she had a sair time o''t."

"No that sair, sae far as I see-an' wha sud ken better? She's had a bien doon-sittin' (sheltered quarters), and sud hae had as lang's I was to the fore. Na, na; it was nowther sae young nor yet sae sair."

"Aih! but she was a patient cratur wi' a' flesh," persisted Mrs. Mellis, as if she would not willingly