and little did Miss Horn think how useless was her warning, or
where Barbara Catanach was at that very moment Trusting to Jean's
cunning, as well she might; she was in the dead chamber, and
standing over the dead. She had folded back the sheet--not from
the face, but from the feet--and raised the night dress of fine
linen in which the love of her cousin had robed the dead for the
repose of the tomb.

"It wad hae been tellin' her," she muttered, "to hae spoken Bawby
fair! I'm no used to be fa'en foul o' that gait. I 's be even
wi' her yet, I'm thinkin'--the auld speldin'! Losh! and Praise
be thankit! there it's! It's there!--a wee darker, but the same
--jist whaur I could ha' laid the pint o' my finger upo't i' the
mirk!--Noo lat the worms eat it," she concluded, as she folded
down the linen of shroud and sheet--"an' no mortal ken o' 't but
mysel' an' him 'at bude till hae seen 't, gien he was a hair better
nor Glenkindie's man i' the auld ballant!"

The instant she had rearranged the garments of the dead, she
turned and made for the door with a softness of step that strangely
contrasted with the ponderousness of her figure, and indicated great
muscular strength, opened it with noiseless circumspection to the
width of an inch, peeped out from the crack, and seeing the opposite
door still shut, stepped out with a swift, noiseless swing of
person and door simultaneously, closed the door behind her, stole
down the stairs, and left the house. Not a board creaked, not a
latch clicked as she went. She stepped into the street as sedately
as if she had come from paying to the dead the last offices of
her composite calling, the projected front of her person appearing
itself aware of its dignity as the visible sign and symbol of a