134 The Little Minister

an unsteady head who thought all the earth of
her. His loom has taken a foot from his stature,
and gone are Nanny’s raven locks on which he
used to place his adoring hand. Down in Airlie
Square he is weaving for his life, and here is
Nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them
is the hill where they were lovers. That is all
the story save that when Nanny heard the dog-
cart she screamed.

No neighbour was with her. If you think this
hard, it is because you do not understand. _Per-
haps Nanny had never been very lovable except to
one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her
own vanity; but there was much in her to like.
The neighbours, of whom there were two not a
hundred yards away, would have been with her
now, but they feared to hurt her feelings. No
heart opens to sympathy without letting in
delicacy, and these poor people knew that
Nanny would not like them to see her being
taken away. For a week they had been aware
of what was coming, and they had been most
kind to her, but that hideous word, the poor-
house, they had not uttered. Poorhouse is not
to be spoken in Thrums, though it is nothing to
tell a man that you see death in his face. Did
Nanny think they knew when she was going? was a
question they whispered to each other, and her
suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts. So now
that the hour had come they called their children
into their houses and pulled down their blinds.

“Tf you would like to see her by yourself,” the
doctor said eagerly, to Gavin, as the horse drew
up at Nanny’s gate, “Ill wait with the horse.