the thaw came suddenly, and, almost in a night, the snow went, leaving the moorlands like some vast sponge. the air was full of the rushing of a great west wind and the noise of running water, as burns, heavy with spate, came tumbling down the hillsides.

ann stood looking out at the wide view, at the hills purple-dark, with drifts of snow still in the hollows and at the back of dykes.

"'as dull as a great thaw,'" she quoted. "it's like a giant's washing day—such a sloppiness and dreariness, and that horrible steamy feeling that a house gets when the frost goes suddenly and leaves everything damp, even the walls and the furniture. a new-made road is no great treat in a thaw. i stuck, and nearly left my big boots behind me this morning. i wish it would get dark and we could draw the curtains and have tea."

"i don't want to grumble," mrs. douglas said, turning the heel of a stocking with a resigned air, "but these last few days have been very long. no post even! that was the last straw. i've knitted a pair of stockings for little davie, and i've written a lot of letters, and i've tried each of the library books in turn, but nowadays nobody writes the sort of book i like. no, they don't, ann."

"but what kind of book pleases you, mother? i thought we had rather a good selection this week. one or two are quite interesting."

"interesting!" repeated mrs. douglas. "they seemed to me the very essence of dullness. i don't think i'm ill to please, but i do like a book that is clean and kind. i put down each of those books in disgust; they're both dull and indecent. is it easier to be clever and nasty than clever and clean?"

"oh, much," said ann promptly. "it's a very hard thing, i should think, to write a book that is pleasant without being mawkish, whereas any fool can be nasty and can earn a reputation of sorts by writing what davie used to call 'hot stuff.'"

"well, i wish some one would arise who would write for the middle-aged and elderly; there are a great many in the world, and they are neglected by nearly every one—fashion writers, fiction writers, play writers—no one caters for them. i like domestic fiction, gentle but not drivelling, good character drawing and a love story that ends all right."

"in other words," said ann, "good print and happy ending. what about me? why shouldn't i become the writer for middle-aged women? i might almost call myself a writer now that i have wrestled for weeks with your life, and i believe i would find it easier to write fiction than biography—to leave what marget calls 'facs' and take to 'lees.' facts crib and cabin one. given a free hand i might develop an imagination."

"who knows? only don't begin anything else until you have finished the job you are at. i do hate to leave unfinished work."

"oh, so do i," said ann, "and i mean to plod on with the life to the bitter end—but i had better take bigger strides and cover the ground. from davie's birth—do you remember he used to say when we complained of his accent, 'well, you shouldn't have borned me in glasgow'—on till you went to south africa nothing of importance happened."

mrs. douglas stared at her daughter. "seven years," she said. "did nothing important happen in those years?"

"nothing," ann said firmly, "except that the boys left school and went to oxford——"

"oh, but ann, don't hurry on so. you must put in about the boys doing so well at school and getting scholarships and almost educating themselves. it might spur on that lazy little rory to hear about them ... and you grew up."

"my growing up wasn't much of an event," said ann. "indeed it was something of a disaster. i had been rather attractive-looking as a schoolgirl because my hair fluffed out round my face, but when i put it up i dragged it all back into a little tightly hair-pinned bump. the change was startling. i was like a skinned rabbit. the boys hung umbrellas on the bump and the church people came to you and asked you to make me let down my hair again because they couldn't bear the look of me. and i wore a thick brown coat and a brown hat with red in it, and i had no more notion how to dress myself becomingly than a kaffir woman. i was a poor little object and i knew it. then one night i went to a party—an ordinary glasgow party, full of jokes and good things to eat—and there i met an artist; i suppose she would be about thirty—i longed prodigiously to be thirty when i was eighteen; it seemed to me the ideal age—and she wore a wonderful flowing gown, and her red hair was parted in the middle and lay in a great knot of gold at the nape of her neck. i had never seen anything like this before—all your friends had their hair tightly and tidily done up and wore bodices with lots of bones—and i sat and worshipped. i suppose she had recognised worship in the eyes of the awkward, ill-dressed young girl, for she came and sat beside me and talked to me and asked what i meant to do in the world. i hadn't thought of doing anything, i told her; i had a lot of brothers and a busy mother, and i helped at home. she told me she would like to paint me, and i was flattered beyond belief and promised to go to her studio the very next day. margot stronach and everything about her were a revelation to me. i thought her flat—which was probably rather tawdry and pinned together: she confessed to me that she seldom bothered to sew things—the last word in art. divans made out of discarded feather beds, polished floors, white walls and blue jars with cape gooseberries—what could one want more? i felt my clothes singularly out of place in such surroundings, and i gave you no peace until i had got a long straight-hanging white frock with gold embroideries which the boys called my nightgown and in which i felt perfectly happy. margot certainly did improve my appearance vastly, you must admit that, mother. she made me take a few dozen hairpins out of my poor hair, part it in the middle and fold it lightly back, and she taught me the value of line, but she turned me for the time being into a very affected, posing young person. it was then that i turned your nice comfortable victorian drawing-room upside down and condemned you as a family to semi-darkness! i can't think why you were so patient with me. the boys hooted at me, but i didn't mind them, and you and father meekly stotted about, until father one afternoon fell over a stool and spilt all his tea, whereupon he flew into one of his sudden rages, vowed that this nonsense must cease, and pulled up the blinds to the very top."

mrs. douglas laughed softly. "poor ann, we didn't appreciate your artist friends much, but——"

"oh, but mother," ann interrupted, "margot wasn't a real artist—not like kathleen and jim strang, or any of the serious artists. she was only a woman with a certain amount of money and a small talent, good looks, and a vast amount of conceit. even my foolish young eyes saw that very soon."

"she put me very much about," mrs. douglas said; "she had such a wailing, affected way of talking. i never could think of anything to say in reply. besides, i knew all the time she was thinking me an ignorant, frumpish woman, and that didn't inspire me. you admired her so much that you even copied her voice...."

ann began to laugh. "it must have been terrible, mother. i remember davie meeting margot on the stairs, and she knelt down and began to talk to him in that wailing, affected voice. davie was a little fellow and easily frightened, and he suddenly clutched my dress and burst into tears, sobbing 'nana, nana, it's the bandarlog.' fortunately margot didn't know her 'jungle book,' so she missed the allusion."

"what happened to her?" mrs. douglas asked.

"oh, kathleen told me she had met her somewhere quite lately. she married a rich business man, stout and a little deaf—that was all to the good!—and, kathleen said, looked very fat and prosperous and middle-aged. she said to kathleen, 'still painting away?' and kathleen, greatly delighted, replied, 'still painting away.'"

"oh, yes, kathleen would appreciate that remark.... what was your next phase, ann?"

"i had no more phases," said ann, and got up to get a paper to hold between her face and the fire. "i began to go to london for a month in the spring, and uncle bob took me with him when he went abroad, and mark took me to switzerland to climb—that was absolutely the best holiday of all—and i had a very, very good time."

"yes," said her mother, "i remember a poor bed-ridden girl in the church saying to me wistfully, 'miss ann's life is just like a fairy tale.'"

ann nodded. "it must have seemed so to her, poor child! and indeed i was very fortunate; i had such wonderful brothers. but i never really liked going away from home unless we went as a family. i hated to leave davie. how quickly we all seemed to grow up after we left kirkcaple, mother!—robbie especially. it seems to me, looking back, that he sprang quite suddenly from an incredibly mischievous, rough little boy into a gentle, silent schoolboy."

mrs. douglas stopped knitting and looked thoughtfully into the fire. "robbie," she said—how soft, thought ann, her mother's voice was when it named her boys—"robbie changed quite suddenly. up to thirteen he was the firebrand of the household. your father alone never lost patience with his wild laddie. 'let him alone,' he would say, 'he'll be the best of the lot yet.' marget used to say, 'there's naething for it but to make him a sodger; the laddie canna get his fill o' fechtin'.' i don't know what changed him. i think he just got sense. children do, if you let them alone. he began to be keen to take a good place at school. robbie had lots of brains, ann."

"oh, brains! he was one of the most capable men i ever knew. in india there was no limit to the expectations his friends had for him."

"oh, ann, i wish he hadn't gone to india, but his heart was set on it always. the indian army! how he used to talk to me about it, and beg me not to make a fuss about letting him go! i would have been so pleased if all my boys had been ministers. i used to picture to myself, when you were all little, how i would go from manse to manse, and what a proud mother i would be. i never could bear the army as a profession; your father and i never saw eye to eye about that——"

"poor mother, it was too bad! you wanted nice little clucking barndoor fowls, and you found yourself with young eagles! i know. it would have been a lovely life for you to do nothing but visit manses. i can see you doing it. but even you stretched your wings a little. was the south african trip a silver-wedding jaunt?"

"yes; don't you remember? the congregation gave us a cheque at your father's semi-jubilee, and that was how we spent it."

"oh, the semi-jubilee!" said ann. "that was a great occasion. a social meeting, with tea and cakes and speakers and presentations. eminent men brought from a distance to say complimentary things to you and father, and all sorts of old friends from inchkeld and kirkcaple came with offerings, and so many of them stayed with us that the family had to be boarded out! we acquired a lot of loot at that time in the way of fitted dressing-cases and silver things, and we had a gorgeous silver-wedding cake. robbie had thought that you couldn't have a bridescake unless you were being married, and when he found he had been mistaken he said the only reason for marrying was gone! it was a glorious cake. the boys were all at home for the christmas holidays, and when they got hungry in the forenoon they would go and cut chunks off it with a pen-knife—until we had to hide it. you didn't go away directly, mums. it was the next november before you left for south africa, and what a business it was getting you away!"

"'there's muckle adae when cadgers ride,'" mrs. douglas quoted. "and it was a great undertaking. i didn't in the least want to go, but your father was as keen as a schoolboy, and i couldn't let him go alone, and i couldn't leave davie, so the three of us went. mark had gone to london and was settled in his rooms in the temple. robbie and jim were studying, and you had invitations to fill up all the time."

"i only visited between the boys' vacations, then we were all together at uncle bob's. what angels he and aunt katharine were to us! the rest of the time i paid visits, and very nearly had a bad nervous breakdown through having to be consistently pleasant for nine months at a stretch. you see, i stayed with such very different people, and the effort to adjust myself to each in turn was rather wearing. when the boys went back for the summer term, uncle bob took aunt katharine and me over to touraine. we stayed at tours, and made expeditions all round to the lovely old châteaux, and came home by paris and london and finished up at oxford for eights' week. wasn't it kind of uncle bob? oh, i do wish all the nice people weren't dead! each one that goes takes so much of the light away with him.... you didn't regret taking the trip, mother?"

"not for a minute, except, perhaps, when davie supped a whole tin of condensed milk and nearly perished, and your father was poisoned by a mosquito bite and was blind for two days. it did me a world of good to come across people who had never heard of the united free church of scotland and who had no desire to hear about it, and who interested me enormously by the way they looked at life. mark always used to tell me that with me journeys ended in mothers' meetings, and i was too much like that. i hadn't, perhaps, realised that people might be opposed to everything i thought right and proper and yet be good people. i worried a good deal about you children at home—it wouldn't have been me if i hadn't had a trouble—but your father and davie were blissfully happy."

"you wrote splendid letters," said ann, "telling every detail. father hated writing letters—we used to tell him that he would rather walk five miles than write a p.c.—and his efforts were quite short and chiefly confined to statements such as: 'what a beautiful blue the ocean is'; 'the veldt is much what i thought it would be.' davie wrote delicious letters on oily scraps of paper—oily because he was generally anointed with a lotion for mosquito bites—which invariably ended: 'now i must finch up.' he never ceased to mourn the little mongoose that died before he could bring it home, but he did fetch a giant tortoise, which snowked about at etterick until a specially cold winter finished it. and you brought home a gorgeous fur rug and piles of ostrich feathers. how did you collect so many presents?"

"well, you see, part of the time your father was taking services for a minister home on leave, and the kindness and hospitality of the people were boundless. and i felt so mean about doing so little to entertain them when they turned up in glasgow. we had a few to stay, but most of them were only asked to luncheon, and it sounded so shabby."

"oh, but it's different out there," ann said comfortably. "i felt i could never repay the hospitality of the people i met in india. but robbie didn't at all take up that attitude. 'it's jolly nice for them to have you,' was what he said, and i suppose he meant that visitors from 'home' are sure of a welcome from exiles from 'home.' you are a stranger in the land of their adoption, and they want you to see the best side of things. it is different when they come back, then we are all at home together. aha, tea at last, and marget bringing it in!"

"ay," said marget, putting the kettle on the spirit-lamp, and carrying the covered dish of muffins to the brass stool in the fireplace. "mysie went awa' doon to the village, seein' it was fresh again. she's young, ye ken, and juist deein' for a crack wi' some o' her frien's. there's a mune, and somebody'll see her hame i've nae doot. will i licht the lichts the noo?"

mrs. douglas smiled at the old woman. "i think we'll have tea in the firelight, marget. i'm glad mysie has gone out for a little. it's a dull life up here for a young girl."

"oh, her," said marget, dismissing her niece and her possible dullness with a gesture. "d'ye mind, mem, the maister never likit his tea in the dark. he said he couldna see the road to his mooth. 'marget,' he would say to me, 'let's have some light on the subject.' that was aye what he said."

marget stood in the firelight and looked at the two women at the tea-table.

"d'ye ken what i was thinkin' this afternoon when i was ma lane? i was thinkin' how queer it was that a' oor men-folk are awa' and three weemen's a' that's left."

"marget," said ann, "what a croaking old raven you are! we're not alone for always. mr. mark and mr. jim will be back in the spring."

marget shook her head gloomily. "i've nae comfort in thinkin' aboot folk awa' ower the sea. it's a terrible dangerous thing to travel."

"yes, marget," said her mistress, "we've just been talking, miss ann and i, about our trip to south africa. you washed your hands of us then."

"me! i never thocht to see ony o' ye again. an' takin' wee davie into sic danger! a' the sailin' i ever did was from burntisland to granton afore they pit up the forth bridge."

"you're as bad as little tommy hislop," said ann. "i spoke to him the other day—you know he is going out with his mother to join his father in south africa?—and asked him how he would like the big ship. 'i'm no gaun in a ship,' he said; 'i dinna like them. i'm gaun roond the road in a cairt wi' ma uncle jake.'"

"he's a wise laddie," said marget. "but it was an awfu' set-oot when you gaed awa' to africa. an' we thocht we'd better try and let the hoose for the winter and keep it fired, an' some queer american folk cam' aboot it, kin o' missionaries they were, an' the maister said they were decent folk and let them get it."

"yes, and we knew nothing about them," said mrs. douglas. "they belonged to some sort of religious sect in america, and had come over here to do propaganda work. they seemed to live like the early christians, having all things in common and taking no thought for the morrow, and they could only offer us a nominal rent; but your father talked to them and thought them sincere and liked them, so we gave them the house. we had a cellar full of coal and a cupboard full of jam, and we asked them if they would care to take them both over. they said they would have to ask the lord, and they came back and said: the lord says we may take the coal, but not the jam,' and we felt so sorry for the funny little people that we gave them the jam. they had the wildest of accents, and we had difficulty in understanding them when they asked, 'is there a crack in the door to let the mail through?' and 'has the yard been spaded over this fall?'"

"wasn't it like our daft ways," said ann, as she sipped her tea, "to let our house at a ridiculously low rent to people we knew absolutely nothing about? you know, mother, they held meetings in the drawing-room, and the neighbours, watching the people troop in, shuddered for our carpets. i think it was some sort of faith-healing that they did. when they left, a month before you were expected back, aunt agatha and jim and i went to see what the house was like, and arrange about having it thoroughly cleaned. we found it in perfect condition. two of the women came to see us the night we were there, and told us something of the work. i asked them how they had kept the carpets so fresh, and they said quite simply, 'we asked the lord.' i shall never forget poor aunt agatha's face of utter terror—you know her almost insane horror of infection—when one of those bible christians said, 'would you believe it, we cured a case of smallpox in this very room?' they had replaced everything they had broken, so they did very well by us. it's nice not to have to think hardly of christians, whatever sect they belong to."

"that's true," said marget, "but i think the puir bodies had leeved on cocoa. sic a cocoa-tins they left in a press!"

"ann," said mrs. douglas, "i've just been thinking, you should tell about old christina in my life. she was a most interesting character."

ann shook her head as she rose from the tea-table. "i've too many old women in it already. besides, i'm not going to write just now. i'm going to lie in the most comfortable chair the room contains and read an article in the times literary supplement called 'love and shakespeare.' does that sound good enough?"