Seated at the breakfast-table, Marjory always knew what was coming. As soon as they each had a cup of coffee and something to eat, the doctor would say, "Well, Marjory, how's things?"
It was always the same question, and it usually received the same answer. Marjory would feel very shy and awkward, and say, "All right, thank you," and nothing more. She never could think of anything that she felt would be interesting to her uncle. Week after week she would resolve to try to be less awkward, but when the time came it was usually only by a long list of questions that her uncle could get any information from her. On this particular Sunday morning she sat waiting for the inevitable question. It soon came. "Well, Marjory, how's things?"
Marjory made a valiant effort, and at last she gave her uncle a different reply. She looked up and said, "Better, thank you, uncle."
"Better, eh?" he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "That's good, if better can be good!"
"Everything's so different since Blanche came," Marjory went on, "and now that I'm going to have real lessons."
"It certainly has been an exciting week for you. First you quarrelled with that frizzle-pated Smylie girl, then with your old good-for-nothing of an uncle, then you met Blanche, then you made up your quarrels, Blanche came here, you went there, and so on." And the doctor smiled.
Marjory answered the smile, thinking how nice her uncle looked when he smiled, and wishing that he would do it oftener.
The smile was simply a response to her own effort in trying to understand her uncle better. She had been blaming him for his seeming indifference to her, when in reality she herself had been very much at fault. Of late the doctor had begun to feel that it was no use trying to win Marjory's confidence, she seemed to keep herself so aloof from him; but since she had faced him in the study, first like a little fury demanding to be sent to school, then pale and trembling, asking for his pardon, he had felt that he knew something more of the real Marjory, and he, too, had determined to try to preserve this better understanding.
Soon after breakfast they started off to church. It was a walk of about a mile, and Marjory and the doctor always went together. Silky always knew when Sunday came round. He would sit quite still by the gate and watch them with serious, longing eyes, but he never offered to accompany them. He made it a rule, however, to go to meet them on the way back. He always sat waiting by a certain milestone, and as soon as they turned the bend of the road beyond it, he would go bounding towards them, frisking and wagging his tail, and barking excitedly.
The walks to church were not altogether pleasant ones for Marjory, as a rule. Her best clothes were always rather a worry to her, and she was obliged to wear gloves. Lisbeth was in the habit of seeing them start off. She took great pride in the doctor's appearance on the "Sawbath," and surveyed him critically from the crown of his shining silk hat to the sole of his well-polished boots. She never failed to set Marjory's hat straight, to give sundry little pats to her frock, and to what she called "sort" her hair. Marjory wore it in a plait all the week, but on Sunday it was allowed to hang at its will, and Lisbeth loved to see the wavy black mass which reached to the girl's waist, though she would not for worlds have told Marjory so, in case it might encourage her in the sin of vanity!