Miss Mackenzie laid down the scissors which she had been using on a bit of coarse cotton, and advanced in reply to the address of the newcomer. "How do you do? and where did you pick up this creature?" she asked, looking curiously at the importation.
"Near George IV. Bridge, on this side of it, and I just took hold of her and brought her off to you at once. I don't believe"--this was said _sotto voce_--"that she has a particle of clothing on her but that frock."
"Very likely.--What is your name, my child?"
"Baubie Wishart, mem." She spoke in an apologetic tone, glancing down at her feet, the one off duty being lowered for the purpose of inspection, which over, she hoisted the foot again immediately into the recesses of the Rob Roy tartan.
Baubie Wishart glanced down again in thought for an instant, then raised her eyes for the first time directly to her questioner's face: "He used to be a Christy man, but he canna be that any longer, sae he goes wi' boords."
"Why cannot he be a Christy man any longer?"
Down came the foot once more, and this time took up its position permanently beside the other: "Because mother drinks awfu', an' pawned the banjo for drink." This family history was related in the most matter-of-fact, natural way.
"And does your father drink too?" asked Miss Mackenzie after a short pause.
Baubie Wishart's eyes wandered all round the room, and with one toe she swept up a little mass of dust before she answered in a voice every tone of which spoke unwilling truthfulness, "Just whiles--Saturday nichts."
"Ay," looking up quickly, "excep' just whiles when he's fou--Saturday nichts, ye ken--and then he beats me; but he's rale kind when he's sober."
"No, mem," with a shake of the head that seemed to convey that she had something else, and probably better, to do.
"Did you ever hear of God?" asked the lady who had brought her.
"Ay, mem," answered Baubie quite readily: "it's a kind of a bad word I hear in the streets."
"How old are you?" asked both ladies simultaneously.
"Thirteen past," replied Baubie, with a promptness that made her listeners smile, suggesting as it did the thought that the question had been put to her before, and that Baubie knew well the import of her answer.