He advanced the next instant and spoke.
'I beg yer pardon, mem.

I thoucht naebody wad see me.

I haena dune nae ill.' 'I had not the least suspicion of it, I assure you,' returned Miss St.
John.

'But, tell me, what makes you go through here always at the same hour with the same parcel under your arm ?' 'Ye winna tell naebody--will ye, mem, gin I tell you ?' Miss St.John, amused, and interested besides in the contrast between the boy's oddly noble face and good bearing on the one hand, and on the other the drawl of his bluntly articulated speech and the coarseness of his tone, both seeming to her in the extreme of provincialism, promised; and Robert, entranced by all the qualities of her voice and speech, and nothing disenchanted by the nearer view of her lovely face, confided in her at once.
'Ye see, mem,' he said, 'I cam' upo' my grandfather's fiddle.

But my grandmither thinks the fiddle's no gude.