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RV 71 (Rh) 'Speak out, Dame Glendinning,' said the father; 'with us it is your duty to have no secrets.'

'Nay, if it please your reverence, it is not that I would keep anything from your reverence's knowledge, but I fear I should prejudice the lady in your opinion; for she is an excellent lady—months and years has she dwelt in this tower, and none more exemplary than she; but this matter, doubtless she will explain it herself to your reverence.'

'I desire first to know it from you, Dame Glendinning,' said the monk; 'and I again repeat, it is your duty to tell it to me.'

'This book, if it please your reverence, which Father Philip removed from Glendearg, was this morning returned to us in a strange manner,' said the good widow.

'Returned!' said the monk; 'how mean you?'

'I mean,' answered Dame Glendinning, 'that it was brought back to the tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how—that same book which Father Philip carried with him but yesterday. Old Martin, that is my tasker and the lady's servant, was driving out the cows to the pasture—for we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be Saint Waldhave, and thanks to the holy monastery'

The monk groaned with impatience; but he remembered that a woman of the good dame's condition was like a top, which, if you let it spin on untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt it by flogging, there is no end to its gyrations. 'But, to speak no more of the cows, your reverence, though they are likely cattle as ever were tied to a stake, the tasker was driving them out, and the lads, that is my Halbert and my Edward, that your reverence has seen at church on holidays, and especially Halbert,—for you patted him on the head and gave him a brooch of Saint Cuthbert, which he wears in his bonnet,—and little Mary Avenel, that is the lady's daughter, they ran all after the cattle, and began to play up and down the pasture as young folk will, your reverence. And at length they lost sight of Martin and the cows; and they began to run up a little cleugh which we call Corri-nan-shian, where there is a wee bit stripe of a burn, and they saw there—Good guide us!—a White Woman sitting on the burn-side