"Hout, woman!" said Nelly, who had listened to this mournful recapitulation, not without some indications of doubt as to its authenticity--"hout, woman; yesterday was _pay-day_, as they ca't, among the bleachers, and I'll warrant the wraith was just some scamp frae the bleachfield, wha had gotten himself half-fou, and wanted to get a while's daffin wi' the lassie, Sabbath morning though it was."
"O Nelly, Nelly!" rejoined the other, "I wonder to hear ye speak at that rate, after what happened in Nanny Ferly's last summer!"
Finding that she was not likely to meet with much sympathy here, Margaret left the house rather abruptly. But her mind was in a state of perturbation which forbade her to rest, and she hastened forthwith to Nanny Ferry, her next neighbour, to whom she told the same story, word for word, and had the satisfaction--if satisfaction it can be called--of seeing every circumstance listened to with the deepest attention, and every syllable believed as readily as if it had been part of a sermon.
"Ay, ay, Margate," said her auditor, when she had heard the story to an end, "it's a warning, shure aneugh; and that will be seen before lang; for I never kenned a warning fail. I'll mind that nicht as lang as I live, when the warning came for my sister's dochter, Lizzy Lawmont; and weel I wat she was as dear to me as if she had been my ain bairn--though I've aye been spared the fashery o' bairns. Aweel, the doctor said she was greatly better; and sae, as I was complainin at the time, she was taen ben the house, to let me get some rest; and Lizzy Duncan--glaikit hizzy! as she has turned oot--cam to sit up for the nicht. The doors were baith steekit, and the lamp was blawn out in the expectation that she would fa' asleep, and I was lying waukin, with the _worm in my lug_, when I hears a rap at the windock, just as ye heard it, and something said _Lizzy_, as laigh and as plain as I'm saying it enoo. Aweel, I startit up, expecting to find the dear lassie a corpse, but it was some time before I could gang ben to see; and when I did gang ben, I found her waukening frae a sleep; and Lizzy Duncan said she had sleepit mair than twa hours. But, from that minute, I kenned brawly what was to happen, and from that minute she grew waur and waur, till the neist nicht about ten o'clock, when the speerit left her weel-faured clay to the worms. Sae, Margate, never build yoursel up in Nelly's nonsense about _lads_; she's a puir haverin body; and, as shure as the sun rises and sets, your Mary is gaun fast from this world, e'en as my Lizzy gaed before her."