treated, went to his bedside, and, in the most prudent and gentlest
manner, broke to him what had been the cause of his illness, and the
strong ground there was to suspect that his daughter was the
occasion of it. The father, with a fondness greater than ever a
father felt before, cried out, "Poor love-sick girl! What will not a
woman do for the man she loves? But who do you think gave her the
powder?" She answered, "She could not tell, unless it was sent by
Mr. Cranstoun." "I believe so too," says the master, "for I remember
he has talked learnedly of poisons. I always thought there was
mischief in those cursed Scotch pebbles."

Soon afterwards he got up and came to breakfast in his parlour,
where his daughter and Mr. Littleton, his clerk, then were. A dish
of tea, in the usual manner, was ready poured out for him. He just
tasted it and said, "This tea has a bad taste," looked at the cup,
then looked hard at his daughter. She was, for the first time,
shocked, burst into tears, and ran out of the room. The poor father,
more shocked than the daughter, poured the tea into the cat's basin,
and went to the window to recover himself. She soon came again into
the room. Mr. Littleton said, "Madam, I fear your father is very
ill, for he has flung away his tea." Upon this news she trembled,
and the tears again stood in her eyes. She again withdraws. Soon
afterwards the father came into the kitchen, and, addressing himself
to her, said, "Molly, I had like to have been poisoned twenty years
ago, and now I find I shall die by poison at last." This was warning
sufficient. She immediately went upstairs, brought down Mr.
Cranstoun's letters, together with the remainder of the poison, and
threw them (as she thought unobserved) into the fire. Thinking she
had now cleared herself from the suspicious appearances of poison,
her spirits mend, "she thanked God that she was much better, and