Under a raised flat stone, which made a kind of shelter, a woman was lying.

She was now insensible, and Andrew lifted her carefully into the cart.

Perhaps it was some satisfaction to him that she did not actually die within such unhallowed precincts; but the poor creature herself was beyond such care.

When she had seen her child in Mysie's arms, and comprehended Mysie's assurance that she would care for it, all anxiety slipped away from her.

Andrew strove hard to make her understand the awful situation in which she was; but the girl lay smiling, with upturned eyes, as if she was glad to be relieved of the burden of living.
"You hae done your duty, gudeman," at length said Mysie, "and now you may leave the puir bit lassie to me; I'll dootless find a word o' comfort to say to her." "But I'm feared, I am awfu' feared, woman, that she is but a prodigal and an--" "Hush, gudeman! There is mercy for the prodigal daughter as weel as for the prodigal son;" and at these words Andrew went out with a dark, stern face, while she turned with a new and stronger tenderness to the dying woman.
"God is love," she whispered; "if you hae done aught wrang, there's the open grave o' Jesus, dearie; just bury your wrang-doing there." She was answered with a happy smile.