"And if you don't keep the water boiling hot, you'll hear about it," Ann warned her.
Marget drew herself up. "If the Cornel speaks to me as if I were a black oot in India I'll speir at him..."
"Marget, more and more you remind me of the late Queen Victoria. You have the grand manner."
"Havers!" said Marget.
Mrs. Douglas broke in. "You'll have to be very kind to Colonel and Mrs. Moncrieff, Marget. You know since we last saw them they have lost both their sons, and from what I hear they are very broken."
Marget shook her head. "It's awfu' hertless work leevin' now that sae mony o' the young folk are deid. A' ma life I've been fear't to dee, an' at meetings I never sang at 'O for the pearly gates o' Heaven' for fear I'd be taken at ma word, but the ither nicht I hed sic a bonnie dream. I thocht I was in an awfu' neat wee hoose, an' it was Johnnie Johnston's hoose—ye mind him, Mem, at Kirkcaple?—an' I said, 'My, Johnnie, ye're awfu' comfortable here,' an' he says, 'Ay,' he says, 'Look oot o' the windy.' An' there was a great sea, a terrible sea wi' waves an' a' kinds o' wee boats on it, some o' them gettin' an awfu' whummlin. An' I says, 'Eh, is that Galilee?' an' he says, 'Na, it's the Sea of Life.' An' he says, 'Look oot at the other windy noo,' an' here was anither sea, but it was a wee narra sea an' awfu' quait, an' I says, Is that the Jordan?' 'Look ower at the ither side,' he says, an' I lookit, and there was the Golden City. It was the bonniest place I ever saw, the very bonniest, an' I said, 'Eh, I wad like awfu' weel to get ower there, Johnnie Johnston, an' he said, 'No the day, but there's naething surer than that ye'll get ower some day.' An' wi' that I wakened.... I was that vexed I fair grat, but I'll mind ma dream an' it'll help me when ma time comes to gang."
Marget wiped her eyes and then, as if ashamed of having shown emotion, stalked majestically from the room.
Ann and her mother, left alone, sat looking into the fire. For a long time they sat. The logs burned through and fell together, but Ann did not seem to notice that the fire needed mending. The Tatler playfully clawed her hand to entice her to a game, but she pushed him away.
Mrs. Douglas was the first to break the silence. "Dear me, I've never begun my 'reading,' and it will soon be dinner-time. Give me my books over, Ann."
Ann rose and fetched the pile and put them beside her mother. "Biggest first," she said, and handed her Hours of Silence.