"It's just as weel as it is--and gude-day, sister; ye keep Mr.Ratcliffe waiting on--Ye'll come back and see me, I reckon, before"-- here she stopped and became deadly pale.
"And are we to part in this way," said Jeanie, "and you in sic deadly peril?
O Effie, look but up, and say what ye wad hae me to do, and I could find in my heart amaist to say that I wad do't." "No, Jeanie," replied her sister after an effort, "I am better minded now.

At my best, I was never half sae gude as ye were, and what for suld you begin to mak yoursell waur to save me, now that I am no worth saving?
God knows, that in my sober mind, I wadna wuss ony living creature to do a wrang thing to save my life.

I might have fled frae this Tolbooth on that awfu' night wi' ane wad hae carried me through the warld, and friended me, and fended for me.

But I said to them, let life gang when gude fame is gane before it.

But this lang imprisonment has broken my spirit, and I am whiles sair left to mysell, and then I wad gie the Indian mines of gold and diamonds, just for life and breath--for I think, Jeanie, I have such roving fits as I used to hae in the fever; but, instead of the fiery een and wolves, and Widow Butler's bullseg, that I used to see spieling upon my bed, I am thinking now about a high, black gibbet, and me standing up, and such seas of faces all looking up at poor Effie Deans, and asking if it be her that George Robertson used to call the Lily of St.Leonard's.