Ann watched her mother with a soft look in her grey eyes. "I've been thinking, Mums, you ought to write your Life."
Mrs. Douglas came back to the present with an effort. "Write my life? But I did—don't you remember? On that yachting cruise we went, when the sea never stayed calm except for a few hours. There was nothing much to do, so I wrote my life in a twopenny pass-book, with a pencil, and none of you were at all encouraging about it. I read it aloud to you somewhere about the Azores, when you were lying seasick in your berth, and you said it made you feel worse; and Charlotte cried from the next cabin, 'Ann, what is wrong with Gran that she is making that curious, whining sound?' and Mark printed on the cover, 'The Life of auld Mistress Douglas written by herself,' and then it got lost."
"I remember," said Ann. "But this time it must be done properly. You'll tell it to me and I'll write it down, and we'll have it typed and perhaps printed, so that the children when they grow up will know what a queer little grandmother was theirs. Let me see—we'll be here alone until the Moncrieffs come about the middle of December; that will give us a month to work at it. Two hours every night, perhaps more. Does that please you, Motherkin?"
"Ann, you are trying to humour an old woman. I don't suppose the children would ever trouble to read my Life, except perhaps Alison—that child has a strong sense of duty; but I must say I would enjoy remembering it all.... Here are Marget and Mysie."
The two servants came into the room accompanied by a large Persian cat, grey, the colour of a November sky. This beautiful creature had been named by Ann the "Tatler," because his genius for falling into photographic attitudes reminded her, she said, of those ladies, fair and fashionable, whose pictures adorn the weekly pages of that popular journal.
Marget seated herself majestically. She was a tall woman, with a broad, honest face, and hair pulled straight back and covered by a cap—not the flippant scrap of muslin with a bow generally worn, but an erection of coffee-coloured lace, with touches of crimson velvet, which she alluded to as a "kep," and which gave her almost a regal air.
Marget had been thirty-five years with the Douglas family, and was so thoroughly a Douglas that there was never any thought of keeping her in her "place." Mysie, who was her niece, she kept under iron control, but she allowed herself much latitude. No one knew Marget's age. It was a subject on which she had always been excessively touchy. When the Census came round she had said, "I'll no' pit it doon till a' the bairns are oot, an' naebody but the maister'll ken, an' he'll no' tell."
She met all questions with "I'm as auld as ma little finger an' I'm aulder than ma teeth." In revenge the Douglases had intimated to their friends that they had inside knowledge that Marget was at least eighty.
After prayers Mysie left the room, but Marget generally remained for a "crack," delighting to bandy words with "Miss Ann"—a diversion which to-night ended in Ann being called "a daft lassie."
"Lassie!" cried Ann.