"I should think so, indeed," said her mother, as she laid down Hours of Silence and took up Come ye Apart.
"What about the Russian touch?" Ann asked, waving her pen. "Like this: 'She turned upon her pillow, tearing at its satin cover with her nails, then, taking a spoonful of bromide, she continued——'"
"Oh, Ann—don't be ridiculous!"
"Or shall I dispense entirely with commas, inverted and otherwise, and begin without a beginning at all, as the very best people do? It does make Aunt Agatha so angry, that sort of book, where no explanations are offered, and you suddenly find yourself floundering among a lot of Christian names. Anyway, it's much too clever for me to attempt! I'm afraid we must confine ourselves to a plain narrative, with no thoughts, only incidents. I think I'll begin: 'In my youth I wasna what you would ca' bonnie, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'.' How is that?"
Mrs. Douglas shook her head. She had reached From Day to Day, and would soon be at the apex of the pile, Golden Grain. "If you are going to describe my appearance you might at least be accurate."
"Well," said her daughter, "I only know you from a very old photograph as a moon-faced child with tight curls, and then, later, with two babies and a cap! What were you really like?"
Mrs. Douglas sat very upright, with a becoming pink flush on her face and a little smile at the corners of her mouth. "I can see myself the day I met your father for the first time. I had on my first silk dress—royal blue it was—and a locket with a black velvet ribbon round my neck, and my hair most elaborately done in what was called a 'mane,' some rolled up on the top, some hanging down. My hair was my best point. It was thick and wavy, and as yellow as corn. Your father always said he fell in love with the back of my head. Who would believe it who saw me now?"
"'Faigs, ye're no' bad,' as Marget would say," Ann comforted her. "As one gets older looks are chiefly a matter of dress. When you take pains with your clothes no woman of your age looks better; but when you wander out in a rather seedy black dress, with a dejected face under a hat that has seen better days, you can't wonder at what my friend Mrs. Bell said after meeting you one wet day: 'Eh, puir auld buddy; she's an awfu' worrit-lookin' wumman; it fair makes me no' weel to look at her!'"
"Yes, Ann, but you shouldn't have laughed. I don't like that Mrs. Bell. She's a forward woman, and you spoil her."
"Oh, I told her you weren't really old, but those women are so surprisingly young. They have grown-up families and hordes of grandchildren, and you think they are at least seventy and they turn out to be fifty. Of course, it was rather disrespectful of her to call you 'puir auld buddy,' but the 'awfu' worrit-lookin'' was such an exact description of you doing good works on a wet day in your old clothes that I had to laugh. But we're not getting on."