"Take me away! take me away from that horrid ol woman!" cried
Faustina, turning her wrath upon the dame and appealing to Cuddie.
"Whisht! dinna ye mind her. She's a puir dolted auld carline," said Cuddie, in a voice happily too low to reach the ear of said "carline."
"Ye maunna guid her siccan a sair gait, mither," said Cuddie, as they left the cell.
"I doobt she has guided hersel' an uco' ill ane," retorted the dame.
Faustina was left sitting on the side of the hard bed, weeping bitterly. She did not throw off her bonnet or cloak. She could not make herself at home in this wretched den. Besides, it was bitterly cold; there was no fire in the rusty stove and she wrapped her sables more closely around her.
She remained there in the same position, cowering, shivering and weeping, for two or three miserable hours, when she was at length broken in upon by the old dame, who brought in her prison dinner— coarse beef broth, in a tin can, with an iron spoon, and a thick hunk or oatmeal bread on a tin plate.
"What is that!" ask Faustina.
"Your dinner. Is it na guid o' the authorities to feed the like o' you for naething?"
"My dinner! ugh! Do you think I am going to swallow that swill—fit only for pigs?" exclaimed Faustina, in disgust.
"Hech, sirs! what's the warld comming to? It is guid broose, verra guid broose, that many an honest woman would be unco glad to hae for hersel' and her puir bairns, forbye you!" said the dame wrathfully.