There behoved something to be done, and that without delay. So when
Mysie lay asleep, with the innocent evidence of her misfortune by her
side, Mrs. Craig put on her red plaid and went forth on a mother's duty,
and was soon in the presence of George Balgarnie and his young wife. She
was under an impulse which made light of delicate conventionalities, and
did not think it necessary to give the lady an opportunity of being
absent: nay, she rather would have her to be present; for was she, who
had been so far privy to the intercourse between her husband and Mysie,
to be exempt from the consequences which she, in a sense, might have
been said to have brought about?
"Ye have ruined Mysie Craig, sir!" cried at once the roused mother. "Ye
have ta'en awa her honour. Ye have ta'en awa her health. Ye have ta'en
awa her bread. Ay, and ye have reduced three human creatures to want, it
may be starvation; and I have come here in sair sorrow and necessity to
ask when and whaur is to be the remeid?"
"When and where you may find it, woman!" said the lady, as she cast a
side-glance to her husband, probably by way of appeal for the truth of
what she thought it right to say.
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