But pity poor Nanny Coutts, who took her chains to bed with her.
Nanny was buried a month or more before I came to the house on the brae, and even in Thrums the dead are seldom remembered for so long a time as that.

But it was only after Sanders was left alone that we learned what a woman she had been, and how basely we had wronged her.
She was an angel, Sanders went about whining when he had no longer a woman to ill-treat.

He had this sentimental way with him, but it lost its effect after we knew the man.
"A deevil couldna hae deserved waur treatment," Tammas Haggart said to him; "gang oot o' my sicht, man." "I'll blame mysel till I die," Jess said, with tears in her eyes, "for no understandin' puir Nanny better." So Nanny got sympathy at last, but not until her forgiving soul had left her tortured body.

There was many a kindly heart in Thrums that would have gone out to her in her lifetime, but we could not have loved her without upbraiding him, and she would not buy sympathy at the price.

What a little story it is, and how few words are required to tell it! He was a bad husband to her, and she kept it secret.