Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/43

 only help employed in this primitive little household. Two or three times already had she been in on the errand of inquiry, and returned without satisfaction. "I 'clare to yer now, I tink she orter be in; I dunno! but I tink it haint nowuz safe for her to be out, its got so late, and sich a young ting as she is."

"Ye may gang doon to the gate, Winny, an' glint up the street ava', an' see if she's na' kimmin' doon the toun."

Winny obeyed; she went to the gate, shaded her eyes from the dazzling western brightness, stood at least five minutes gazing persistently up the straggling and irregular street, and then returning, she announced gravely, "She's not comin'. I didn't see a bit of her—not one bit!"

"Weel, weel!" said her mistress, smiling; "I'm gey glad o' that, Winny; I wad na' wish my bairnie to kim hame in bits, ony way."

The astute Winny meditated for a minute or two in silence over this seemingly strange answer, and then a loud cachinnation told that the point of her mistress's wit had