"For," said he, "I canna bide that Bruce.
He's a naisty mean cratur. He wadna fling a bane till a dog, afore he
had ta'en a pyke at it himsel'." He agreed, however, with his mistress,
that it would be better to keep Annie in ignorance of her destiny as
long as possible; a consideration which sprung from the fact that her
aunt, now that she was on the eve of parting with her, felt a little
delicate growth of tenderness sprouting over the old stone wall of her
affection for the child, owing its birth, in part, to the doubt whether
she would be comfortable in her new home.
CHAPTER VII.
A day that is fifty years off comes as certainly as if it had been in
the next week; and Annie's feeling of infinite duration did not stop
the sand-glass of Old Time. The day arrived when everything was to be
sold by public _roup_. A great company of friends, neighbours, and
acquaintances gathered; and much drinking of whisky-punch went on in
the kitchen as well as in the room where, a few months before, the
solemn funeral-assembly had met.
Little Annie speedily understood what all the bustle meant: that the
day of desolation so long foretold by the Cassandra-croak of her aunt,
had at length actually arrived, and that all the things she knew so
well were vanishing from her sight for ever.
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