"Wharfor bore I him—wharfor toiled and wrought for him for sae mony years, since the time he sat on my knee smiling in my face, as if he said, I will comfort you when you are old, and will be your stay and support? Was that smile then a lee, put there by the devil, wha has gi'en him the money to deceive me again?"
Then she paused.
"And how could that be? Love is not a cheat; and did ever bairn love a mither as he loved me? or did ever mither love her bairn as I hae loved him? Lord, deliver him frae his enemies, and mak him what he was in thae bygone days—sae innocent, sae cheerful, sae obedient; and I will meekly suffer a' Thou canst lay upon me."
The words reached the ears of the son, and the audible sobs seemed to startle the solemn spirit of the hour and the place. "What would she say," he thought, "if she heard me declare I had robbed my uncle?"
At that moment the door opened, and in rushed little Jeanie S——th,—her face pale, and her blue eyes lighted with fear, and the thin delicate nostril distended, and hissing with her quick breathings,—
"Oh mither, there's twa officers on the stair seeking Charlie!"
And the quick creature, darting her eye on the table where the notes lay, snatched them up, and secreted them in her bosom; and, what was more extraordinary, just as if she had divined something more from her brother's looks, which told her that that money would be sought for by these officers, she darted off like a bird with a crumb in its bill, which it has picked up from beneath your eyes; but not before depositing, as she passed, a paper on a chair near the door.
"That creature is a spirit," said the mother. "She sees the evil in the dark before it comes, and wards it off like a guardian angel; but oh! she has little in her power to be an angel."
And rising, she took up the paper. It was only some bread and cheese, which the girl, knowing the privations of her mother, had bought with a part of her five shillings a week.
Thereafter, just as little Jeannie had intimated, came in two officers, with the usual looks of duty appearing through their professional sorrow.