"The next summer I had my trunk packed to go with your father to Switzerland, but at the last moment I found I couldn't leave you, and he had to go alone. It was very silly, but, anyway, I always saw that he had a good holiday, and I was happy with you children at Etterick. But as you grew older and went away to school I often got away for a little. One great ploy was to go to the Assembly; sometimes we stayed with people, but we greatly preferred to have rooms in a Princes Street hotel. I don't mean to lichtly people's hospitality, but it is a relief when you come in tired not to have to put on a bright, interested expression and tell your hostess all about it."
"I do so agree," said Ann; "'a bright, interested expression' is far too often demanded of ministers' wives and families. What a joy to scowl and look listless at a time. You know, Mums, a manse is a regular school for diplomatists. It is a splendid training. One learns to talk to and understand all sorts of people—just think what an advantage that gives one over people who have only known intimately their own class! And you haven't time to think about yourself; you are so on the alert to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. You have to try and remember the affairs of each different member, how many children they possess, and all about them, and be careful to ask at the right moment for the welfare of each. To say to a very stout lady living alone, 'Are you all well?' savours of impertinence.... Yes, well, you went to a hotel to avoid having to look 'bright and interested,' wise people; and what did you do there?"
"But, Ann," Mrs. Douglas protested, having been struck with her daughter's remarks on her early training, "you spoke as if you were brought up to be hypocrites, and I'm sure that is the very last thing your father and I wanted you to be——"
"Oh, well," said Ann lightly, "the best people are all more or less hypocrites. The world would be a most unpleasant place if we had all—like Lo, the poor Indian—untutored minds and manners. Honesty is sometimes almost a crime, and the man who feels it necessary to speak what he is pleased to call his mind in season and out of season is a public nuisance. Hold your peace if you have nothing pleasant to say. People need encouraging far oftener than you think; even bumptious people are often only bumptious because they are uncertain of themselves. As the White Queen said, 'A little kindness and putting their hair in curl papers' would work wonders for them. But I don't know why I am chattering like a swallow when what I want is to hear about you and Father at the Assembly."
Mrs. Douglas had taken up her knitting, and with a happy smile on her face and her fingers working busily she said:
"I remember one particularly happy Assembly. Davie was about five, and you were at home to keep things right, so my mind was quite at ease, and I had got a smart new coat and skirt—black, trimmed with grey cloth and braided, and a black hat with grey feathers."
"A most ministerial outfit," said Ann, making a face. "I would rather have seen you in the lavender and the dolman."
"It was very suitable for a minister's wife, and it must have been becoming, for almost every one we met said I looked so young, and that pleased your father, though, of course, it was nonsense. We were in a mood to enjoy everything—those May mornings when we came down to breakfast, hungry and well and eager for a new day, and sat at a little table in a bow window looking out on the Castle, and ate fresh herring 'new cam' frae the Forth,' and bacon and eggs and hot rolls."
Mrs. Douglas stopped and said solemnly:
"Ann, if I had a lot of money, do you know what I would do? I would send fifty pounds anonymously to all the ministers—not, of course, to those with big stipends, and certainly not to the ones with rich wives—to let the minister and his wife have a week at the Assembly. It would pay their fare and hotel bill, and leave something over to shop with. Dear me, I wonder rich people don't give themselves a good time by doing happy things like that."