Before they reached it the door opened, and Eppie appeared with an overflow
of question and anxious welcome.
"What on earth--" she began.
"Naething but a bonny wee bairnie, whause mither has tint it!" at once
interrupted and answered Maggie, flying up to her, and laying the child in
her arms.
Mrs. Cormack stood and stared, now at Maggie, and now at the bundle that
lay in her own arms. Tenderly searching in the petticoat, she found at last
the little one's face, and uncovered the sleeping child.
"Eh the puir mither!" she said, and hurriedly covered again the tiny
countenance.
"It's mine!" cried Maggie. "I faund it honest!"
"Its mither may ha' lost it honest, Maggie!" said Eppie.
"Weel, its mither can come for't gien she want it! It's mine till she dis,
ony gait!" rejoined the girl.
"Nae doobt o' that!" replied the old woman, scarcely questioning that the
infant had been left to perish by some worthless tramp. "Ye'll maybe hae't
langer nor ye'll care to keep it!"
"That's no vera likly," answered Maggie with a smile, as she stood in the
doorway, in the wakeful night of the northern summer: "it's ane o' the
Lord's ain lammies 'at he cam to the hills to seek.
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