daughter of a donsie mother, that could gie no name to her gets, of
which she had two laddies, besides Jean. The one of them had gone
off with the soldiers some time before; the other, a douce well-
behaved callan, was in my lord's servitude, as a stable boy at the
castle. Jeanie herself was the bonniest lassie in the whole town,
but light-headed, and fonder of outgait and blether in the causey
than was discreet of one of her uncertain parentage. She was, at
the time when she met with her misfortune, in the service of Mrs
Dalrymple, a colonel's widow, that came out of the army and settled
among us on her jointure.

This Mrs Dalrymple, having been long used to the loose morals of
camps and regiments, did not keep that strict hand over poor Jeanie,
and her other serving lass, that she ought to have done, and so the
poor guileless creature fell into the snare of some of the ne'er-do-
weel gentlemen that used to play cards at night with Mrs Dalrymple.
The truths of the story were never well known, nor who was the
father, for the tragical issue barred all enquiry; but it came out
that poor Jeanie was left to herself, and, being instigated by the
Enemy, after she had been delivered, did, while the midwife's back
was turned, strangle the baby with a napkin. She was discovered in
the very fact, with the bairn black in the face in the bed beside
her.

The heinousness of the crime can by no possibility be lessened; but
the beauty of the mother, her tender years, and her light-
headedness, had won many favourers; and there was a great leaning in
the hearts of all the town to compassionate her, especially when
they thought of the ill example that had been set to her in the walk
and conversation of her mother. It was not, however, within the