But their activity was not so far vanished but that by degrees Robert came to fancy that he had some time or other seen a woman seated at each of those silent powers, whose single hand set the whole frame in motion, with its numberless spindles and spools rapidly revolving--a vague mystery of endless threads in orderly complication, out of which came some desired, to him unknown, result, so that the whole place was full of a bewildering tumult of work, every little reel contributing its share, as the water-drops clashing together make the roar of a tempest.

Now all was still as the church on a week-day, still as the school on a Saturday afternoon.

Nay, the silence seemed to have settled down like the dust, and grown old and thick, so dead and old that the ghost of the ancient noise had arisen to haunt the place.
Thither would Robert carry his violin, and there would he woo her.
'I'm thinkin' I maun tak her wi' me the nicht, Sanders,' he said, holding the fiddle lovingly to his bosom, after he had finished his next lesson.
The shoemaker looked blank.
'Ye're no gaein' to desert me, are ye ?' 'Na, weel I wat!' returned Robert.

'But I want to try her at hame.

I maun get used till her a bittie, ye ken, afore I can du onything wi' her.' 'I wiss ye had na brought her here ava.