"i don't know," said mrs. douglas, "when i first realised what was expected of me as a minister's wife. i suppose i just grew to it. at first i visited the people and tried to take an interest in them, because i felt it to be my duty, and then i found that it had ceased to be merely duty, and that one couldn't live among people and not go shares with them. it was the long anxiety about mark that really drew us together and made us friends in a way that years of prosperity would never have done. there was hardly a soul in the congregation who didn't try to do us some little kindness in those dark days. fife people are suspicious of strangers and rather aloof in their manner, but once you are their friend you are a friend for life. ours was a working-class congregation (with a sprinkling of well-to-do people to help us along)—miners, and workers in the linoleum factories—decent, thrifty folk. trade was dull all the time we were in kirkcaple, and wages were low—ridiculously low when you think of the present-day standard, and it was a hard struggle for the mothers with big young families. of course, food was cheap—half a loaf and a biscuit for twopence—and 'penny haddies,' and eggs at ninepence a dozen—and people hadn't the exalted ideas they have now."

"well," said ann, who was busy filling her fountain-pen, "i seem to remember rather luxurious living about the mid street, and the nether street, and the watery wynd. don't you remember i made friends with some girls playing 'the pal-lals' in the street, and fetched them home with me, and when upbraided for so doing by ellie robbie in the nursery, i said, 'but they're gentry; they get kippers to their tea.' my 'bare-footed gentry' became a family jest."

mrs. douglas laughed, "i remember. to save your face we let them stay to tea, but you were told 'never again.'"

"it was a way i had," said ann. "i was full of hospitable instincts, and liked to invite people; but as i had seldom the moral courage to confess what i had done, the results were disastrous. once i invited eight genteel young friends who, thinking it was a pukka invitation, arrived washed and brushed and dressed for a party, only to find us tearing about the garden in our old saturday clothes. ellie robbie was justly incensed, as she hadn't even a sugar-biscuit to give an air of festivity to the nursery tea, and you were out. in private she addressed me as 'ye little dirt'; but she didn't give me away in public. and the dreadful thing was that i repudiated my guests, and looked as if i wondered what they were doing there."

"poor ellie robbie!" mrs. douglas said. "she was an anxious pilgrim, and you children worried her horribly. she came when she was sixteen to be nursemaid to mark, and she stayed on till we left kirkcaple, when she married the joiner. do you remember her much?"

"i remember one evening in the den. we were getting fern-roots, and ellie robbie and marget were both with us, and marget said to ellie, 'my, how neat your dress kicks out at the back when you walk!' isn't memory an extraordinary thing? i've forgotten most of the things i ought to have remembered, but i can recall every detail of that scene—the earthy smell of the fern-roots, the trowel sticking out of mark's pocket, the sunlight falling through the trees, the pleased smirk on ellie robbie's face. i suppose i would be about five. at that time i was completely lost about my age. when people asked me how old i was, i kept on saying, 'five past,' but to myself i said, 'i must be far more, but no one has ever told me.' ... what was ellie robbie's real name?"

"ellen robinson. her father's name was jack, and he was supposed by you children to be the original of the saying, 'before you can say jack robinson.' marget and ellie got on very well together, although they were as the poles asunder—ellie so small and neat and gentle, marget rather like a benevolent elephant. she is a much better-looking old woman than she was a young one."

"did marget come when maggie ann married?"

"yes. no—there was one between—katie herd. she stayed a month and was doing very well, but she suddenly announced that she was going home. when we asked her why, she replied with great candour, 'i dinna like it verra weel,' and off she went. marget was a success from the first. we knew it was all right as soon as she began to talk of 'oor bairns.' when the work was over she liked to go to the nursery, and you children welcomed her with enthusiasm, and at once called on her to say her poem. then she would stand up and shuffle her feet, and say:

'marget meikle is ma name,

scotland is ma nation,

harehope is ma dwelling place—

a pleasant habitation.'

you delighted in her witticisms. 'ca' me names, ca' me onything, but dinna ca' me ower,' was one that had a great success. both she and ellie were ideal servants for a minister's house; they were both so discreet. no tales were ever carried by them to or from the manse. there was one noted gossip in the congregation who was a terror to ellie. her husband had a shop, and of course we dealt at it—he was an elder in the church—and ellie dreaded going in, for she knew that if mrs. beaton happened to be there she would be subjected to a fire of questions. marget enjoyed an encounter, and liked to think out ways of defeating mrs. beaton's curiosity. not that there was any harm in mrs. beaton and her desire to know all our doings. i dare say it was only kindly interest. i got to like her very much; she was a racy talker and full of whinstone common sense. i was sorry for her, too, for no woman ever worked harder, both in the shop and in the house, and her husband and family took it all for granted. she did kind things in an ungracious way, and was vexed when people failed to appreciate her kindness. across the road from mrs. beaton lived another elder's wife, mrs. lister, who, mrs. beaton thought, got from life the very things she had missed.

"'never toil yourself to death,' she used to tell me, 'for your man and your bairns; they'll no thank you for it. look at the listers over there. willie lister goes about with holes like half-crowns in his heels, but he thinks the world of his aggie.' and it was quite true. i knew that gentle little mrs. lister was everybody's favourite, for she contradicted no one, ruffled no one's feelings, while rough-tongued, honest, impudent mrs. beaton was both feared and disliked. and yet there was no doubt which of the two women one would have chosen to ride the ford with. had a tea-meeting to be arranged, a sale of work to be organised, or a christmas-tree to be provided for sunday school, mrs. beaton was in it—purse and person.

"mrs. lister always took 'the bile' when anything was expected of her. once a year we were invited to tea at the listers' house, and as sure as we found ourselves seated before a table groaning with bake-meats and were being pressed by mr. lister to partake of them because they were all baked by 'mamaw,' mrs. lister would say, 'ay, and i had a job baking them—for i was bad with "the bile" all morning.' as marget says, 'the mistress is awfu' easy scunnered,' and after hearing that my tea was a pretence. it was worse when agatha was there, for then we were apt to wait for the announcement, and when it came give way to painful, secret laughter. agatha always laughed, too, when mrs. lister capped her husband's sayings with 'ay, that's it, paw.' she was a most agreeable wife, but she was a mother before everything. she would have talked all day about her children, bursting out with odd little disjointed confidences about them in the middle of a conversation about something else. 'he's an awful nice boy, johnnie; he's got a fine voice,' would occur in a conversation about the sustentation fund, and in the middle of a discussion about a series of lectures she would whisper, 'he's a queer laddie, our tommy. when nettie was born he put his head round my bedroom door and said, "is she a richt ane, maw?" he meant not deaf or dumb or anything, you know.' she sometimes irritated her husband by her overanxiety about the health of her children. if one coughed in the night she always heard and, fearful of waking mr. lister, she would creep out of bed and jump from mat to mat (i can see her doing it—a sort of anxious little antelope), and listen to their breathing, and hap them up with extra bedclothes. nettie was the youngest, and the delicate one, and had to be tempted to eat. 'oh, ma nettie,' she would say, 'could you take a taste of haddie to your tea or a new-laid egg?'

"she was afraid of nearly everything—mice, and wind, and thunder, and she hated the sea. one morning i met her almost distraught because her boys had all gone out in a boat. 'is their father with them?' i asked. 'no, no,' she said, 'i didna let him go; it was just the more to drown.' poor, anxious little body! god took her first, and she never had the anguish of parting with her children.... what an opportunity ministers and ministers' wives have of getting to know people as they are—their very hearts!"

"yes," said ann; "but it isn't every minister or every minister's wife who can make anything of the opportunity. just think of some we know—sticks. can you think of any poor stricken soul going to them to be comforted 'as one whom his mother comforteth'? what would they say? 'oh, indeed! how sad!' or 'really! i'm very sorry.' some little stilted sentence that would freeze the very fount of tears. you, mother, i don't think you would say anything. to speak to those who weep is no use; you must be able in all sincerity to weep with them. as for father, his voice was enough. isn't it in one of the elizabeth books that someone talking of the futility of long, dull sermons, says, 'if only a man with a voice of gold would stand up and say, "children, christ died for you," i would lay down my head and cry and cry...' oh, it's a great life if a minister and his wife are any good at their job, and, above all, if they have a sense of humour!"

"well, i don't know about the sense of humour," mrs. douglas said doubtfully. "i have often envied the people who never seem overcome by the ludicrous side of things, who don't even seem aware that it is there. do you remember mrs. daw? i dare say not. my first meeting with her was in the path on a hot summer's day. i saw an enormously stout woman toiling in front of me with a heavy basket, and as i passed her she laid down her load, and turning to me a red, perspiring, but surprisingly bland countenance, said, 'hech! but it's a sair world for stout folk.' there was something so falstaffian and jocund about the great figure, and the way she took me into her confidence, that i simply stood still and laughed, and she laughed with me. we shared the basket between us the rest of the way, and after that i often visited her. but i could never let your father come with me; mrs. daw was too much for us together. only once we tried it, and she told us that the doctor had advised her to take 'sheriff-wine and van houtong's cocoah,' and her genteel pronunciation was too much for us. she was never at her best when your father was there; she didn't care for the clergy.

"'a lazy lot,' she called them. 'no wan o' them does a decent day's work. if it was me i wad mak' a' the ministers pollismen as weel, and that wad save some o' the country's siller.' she condescended to say that she rather liked your father's preaching, though her reason for liking it was not very flattering. 'i like him because he's no what ye ca' a scholarly preacher. i dinna like thae scholars, they're michty dull. i like the kind o' minister that misca's the deevil for aboot twenty meenits and then stops.'

"mrs. daw had me bogged at once when we started on theological discussions. she would ask questions and answer them herself as she knelt before the kitchen fire, engaged in what she called 'ringein' the ribs.'

"'ay,' she would say, 'i'm verra fond o' a clear fire. mercy me, it'll be an awfu' want in heaven—a guid fire. ye read aboot golden streets and pearly gates, but it's cauld comfort to an auld body wha likes her ain fireside. of coorse we'll a' be speerits.' (it needed a tremendous effort of imagination to picture mrs. daw as a spirit!) 'wull speerit ken speerit?' and then, as if in scorn at her own question, 'i daur say no! it wad be little use if they did. i could get sma' enjoyment frae crackin' wi' a neebor, if a' the time i was lookin' through her, and her through me. an' what wad we crack aboot? nae couthy bits o' gossip up there—juist harps an' angels fleein' aboot....'

"i would suggest diffidently that when we had gone on to another and higher life we wouldn't feel the want of the homely things so necessary to us here, and mrs. daw, shaking her head, would say, 'i dinna ken,' and then with her great laugh (your father used to quote something about a thousand beeves at pasture when he heard it) she would finish the profitless discussion with 'weel, sit ye doun by ma guid fire and i'll mak' ye a cup o' tea in ma granny's cheeny teapot. we'll tak' our comforts so long as we hae them, for think as ye like the next warld's a queer turn-up onyway....'"