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days after; so he got quit of his cockolder, and Leper's mother got her load of meal.

Leper's mother was a careful industrious wife, but as the bye-word is, 'a working mother makes a dally daughter,' and so it happened here, for she had two glaikit sluts of daughters that would do nothing but lie in their bed in the morning, till, as the saying is, 'the sun was like to burn a hole in their backsides.' The old woman, who was bleaching some cloth, was very early at work in the mornings, and Leper's patience being worn out with the laziness of his two sisters, he resolved to play a trick on them, for their reformation, so he goes and gets a mortcloth, and spread it on the bed above them, and sends the dead bell through the town, inviting the people next day, at four o'clock afternoon, to the burial of his two sisters, for they had died suddenly. This brought all the neighbouring wives in, who one after another lifted up the mortcloth, and said, with a sigh, 'they've gone to their rest; a sudden call indeed!'. Their aunt hearing of this sudden news, came running in all haste, and coming where the jades' mither was at work, and was ignorant of the story, she cries out, 'Fye upon ye, woman, fye upon ye!' 'What's the matter, sister,' says she, 'what's the matter?' 'I think you might let your wark stand for a'e day, when