"Better not tell Marget that," Ann warned her mother. "She is so sorry for Mr. Sharp that she is quite capable of going to the Manse and publicly assaulting the woman. But he would be much better to get rid of her at once; there shouldn't be much difficulty about getting another."
Mrs. Douglas looked doubtful. "Better rue sit than flit," she quoted. "Unless there happened to be a suitable woman in the district, I'm afraid it wouldn't be easy to induce one to come to such an out-of-way place. And they ask such outrageous wages now. When Marget came to me she said, 'I doot ye'll think I've an awfu' big wage. I've been gettin' seven pound in the half-year.' And she said it in a hushed voice as if the very sound of the sum frightened her."
Ann laughed and quoted:
"'Times is changed,' said the cat's-meat man.
'Lights is riz,' said the cat's-meat man.'
The days are over when people could be passing rich on fourteen pounds in the year. Mother, are you quite sure you want to stay here over Christmas? It is such a deadly time at the best. Won't you go and stay with some of the people who have asked us?"
"No, I think not. I wouldn't like to be with anyone but my very own at Christmas time, and it would be ridiculous to bring the children so far—so we shall just stay quietly here."
"Very well," said Ann. Then, after a pause, "I'm asking you, Mother, but you won't pay any attention, where shall I begin to-night? I have written about the South African trip, shall I go on another seven years?"
"Seven years," her mother repeated. "That makes Mark thirty-one. Oh, a tremendous lot happened in those seven years, Ann. Robbie went to India; Jim left Oxford and had just finished his law studies when Uncle Bob died and he had to take his place; Mark married; you went to India. And you talk glibly about writing it in one evening."
"It is rather a spate of events," Ann confessed. "Did they really all happen in seven years, before Davie was fourteen? First, Robbie sailed for India. One of the church people who deeply deplored his going said, 'He's far ower bonnie a laddie for India.'"
"So he was," said Robbie's mother. "It was like cutting off a right hand to let him go."