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 er favourite. "I am so changed that no breathing creature that I have known and loved will now acknowledge me."

At this moment he had reached the kitchen, and soon after the tread of Alison's high heels, and the pat of the crutch-handled cane, which served at once to prop and to guide her footsteps, were heard upon the stairs, an annunciation which continued for some time ere she fairly reached the kitchen.

Morton had, therefore, time to survey the slender preparations for housekeeping, which were now sufficient in the house of his ancestors. The fire, though coals are plenty in that neighbourhood, was husbanded with the closest attention to economy of fuel, and the small pipkin, in which was preparing the dinner of the old woman and her maid-of-all-work, a girl of twelve years old, intimated, by its thin and watery vapour, that Ailie had not mended her cheer with her improved fortune.