"That's enough, Mums. Surely you can tell me now how you think it goes."
Mrs. Douglas smiled at her daughter. "Why did you do that? I'm enjoying it immensely, and——"
"Oh, if anybody could find it interesting, you would; but don't you find it rather stilted?"
"Not stilted exactly, but if you would write in a more homely way, it might be better. Take the reader more into your confidence. I'm not clever enough to explain quite what I mean; but I think you are writing from the outside, as it were. Try to be more—is subjective the word I want? And don't say too much about me. After all, my life was my husband and the children. Write about your father and the boys. Never were brothers more loved by a sister. As for Davie—you brought him up."
Ann's eyes filled suddenly with tears, but in a minute she said lightly:
"You see, Mother, Mr. Scott asks what I am working up to in this Life of yours; how am I going to finish it, he wants to know. I hadn't thought of that. I was just going to leave loose ends—like life. I suppose there ought to be something—some idea that binds the whole thing together. Oh, it is all too difficult. I'd better burn all that I've written, and start again in an entirely new way. How would it do to put your life into scenes? The young girl in a royal blue silk dress and a locket and a black velvet ribbon, meeting her future husband. The wedding. A nursery scene—very effective this!—and then we might have scenes from your church life—you holding a Mothers' Meeting or a Girls' Club, or your first address to the Fellowship meeting. Do you remember you began (as you begin most things) with a deep sigh, and it sounded rather like Hooch, and Robbie said you reminded him of Harry Lauder?" Ann chuckled at the recollection, and her mother said:
"No wonder I was nervous. It was a great ordeal to speak before you scoffing young things. No; I don't like the idea of 'scenes.' I prefer it as it is. How far are you on?"
"I've got us all at school, and I was going to write about Davie being born. It was the summer after Rosamund died, wasn't it? I was at school when I got the news, and some of the girls condoled with me, and said a new baby in the house would be a dreadful nuisance, and I pretended to be bored by the prospect, when really I could hardly contain my excitement. I had to get home for a week-end to see him."
"Poor little baby, to think that we were actually disappointed when he came. We had wanted another girl so much, and a fourth boy seemed rather unnecessary. Of course that was only at the very beginning. He was the plainest looking baby I ever saw, and we would not have had him in the very least different."
"I thought he was lovely," said Ann. "When Mark saw him for the first time, he said, 'Hullo, Peter,' and Peter he was called for years. When I came home from school he was about three years, and he became my special charge. You were so very busy at that time with the house and church work, as well as a great scheme that the Member of Parliament for the district started to teach working women how to make savoury dinners out of nothing. You were so keen about it that you tried all the new dishes on your family, and we nearly perished as a family. I can remember some of the dishes. Stuffed cod's head—one glance at its gruesome countenance was enough. Mock kidney soup, made with grated liver, which, instead of being the rich brown proper to kidney soup, was a sort of olive green. Sea-pie—so-called, Mark said, because the sea was a handy place when you had eaten it. I once went with you to see a demonstration by the principal cooking teacher, a buxom lady with quantities of glossy black hair coiled round her head. She showed us first what she called 'a pretty puddin'.' Instead of sugar she had grated carrots in it, or something surprisingly like that. Then she made shortbread, and when the cakes were finished and ready to go into the oven she wanted something to prick them with, and nothing was at hand. She wasn't easily beaten, for I saw her withdraw a hairpin from the coils on her head and prick them with that. When they were taken from the oven, and I saw that they were to be handed round and tasted, I unobtrusively withdrew. You had noticed nothing, and ate your bit quite happily."