"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme." And
then again:

"I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."

I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.

"I do not know the real name," said I. "I just call it _Alan's air_."

She looked at me directly in the face. "I shall call it _David's air_,"
said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake of Israel
played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by it,
for it's but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like; so, if you
was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by mine."

This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. "Why that,
Miss Grant?" I asked.

"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set your
last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."

This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and
peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was
plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and
thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I
stood under some criminal suspicion. I judged besides that the harshness