"And aye the longer I stood the wilder the bairn ran and skipped lightfoot as a fairy herself. 'Bonnie—bonnie—oh, bonnie!' she cried, clapping her hands and laughing, 'see mither, mither, are they no unco bonnie?'
"Then, by the side of the beck, as if, being wearied with travel, she had set her down to take a drink of the caller burn water, I saw a woman sit. She was beneath a bush of hazel, and her head was resting tired-like on her hand. So, being back there in the shadow, I had not noticed her at the first, being taken up, as was small wonder, with the sight of that bonnie yellow-haired bairn flichtering here and there like a butterfly in the sun.
"Then the wee lass saw me and ran whatever she could to me. She took my hand and syne looked up in my face as trustful-like as if she ha' kenned me all her days.
"'Here woman,' she cried, 'come and wake my minnie to me, for I canna. She winna hearken when her wee Elsie speaks to her.'
"Hand in hand we went up to the poor thing, and even as I went a great fear gripped me by the heart. For the woman sat still, even when my step must have sounded in her ear. I laid my hand on her, and, as I am a living woman, she was clay cauld. The bairn looked ever up into my face.
"'Can you no waken my mither, either?' she said wistfully.
"'No,' said I. 'No, my puir, wee lassie!' For truth to tell, I kenned not what to say.
"'Will minnie never waken?' she asked again, bright as a button.
"'I fear not, bonnie lassie,' said I, and the tear was in my eye.
"Then the elf clapped her hands and danced like a yellow butterfly over the lea.