so nell was left alone, and in a very few minutes slept profoundly.

this event caused a great sensation, not only in the coal mines, but in stirlingshire, and ultimately throughout the kingdom. the strangeness of the story was exaggerated; the affair could not have made more commotion had they found the girl enclosed in the solid rock, like one of those antediluvian creatures who have occasionally been released by a stroke of the pickax from their stony prison. nell became a fashionable wonder without knowing it. superstitious folks made her story a new subject for legendary marvels, and were inclined to think, as jack ryan told harry, that nell was the spirit of the mines.