"The bit boxie" was the coffin of her third cousin Griselda Campbell,
whose body lay on 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 be foiled in the attempt to
extort for the dead some syllable of acknowledgment from the lips
of her late companion.

"'Deed she was that!--a wheen ower patient wi' some. But that
cam' o' haein mair hert nor brains. She had feelin's gien ye like--
and to spare. But I never took ower ony o' the stock. It's a pity
she hadna the jeedgment to match, for she never misdoobted onybody
eneuch. But I wat it disna maitter noo, for she's gane whaur it's