love letter, for instance."

"When did you hear frae Cluny?"

"Yesterday. He is kept vera close to his business, and he is studying
navigation, so that helps him to get the long hours in foreign ports
over. He's hoping to get a step higher at the New Year, and to be
transferred to the Atlantic boats. Then he can perhaps get awa' a
little oftener. Mither, I was thinking when you got strong enough, we
might move to Glasgow. You would hae a' your lads, but Norman, mair at
your hand then."

"Ay, but Norman is worth a' the lave o' them, and beside if I left
this dear auld hame, Norman would want to come here, and I couldna
thole the thought o' that ill luck. Yet it would be gey hard to refuse
him, if he asked me, and harder still to think night and day o' his
big, blundering, rough lads, among my flower beds, and destroying
everything in baith house and bounds. I couldna think o' it! Your
feyther brought me here when the house was naething at a' but a but
and a ben. A bed and a table, a few chairs, and a handfu' o' crockery
was a' we had in the wide warld--save and forbye, as I hae often told
you, my gold wedding ring." And Margot held up her white, shrunken
hand, and looked at it with tears streaming down her face. And oh, how
tenderly Christine kissed her hand and her face, and said she was
right, and she did not wonder she feared Norman's boys. They were a
rough-and-tumble lot, but would make fine men, every one o' them being
born for the sea, and the fishing.

"Just sae, Christine. They'll do fine in a fishing boat, among nets
and sails. But here! Nay, nay! And then there's the mither o' them!
That woman in my place! Can you think o' it, lassie?"

"We'll never speak again o' the matter. I ken how you feel, Mither. It
would be too cruel! it would be mair than you could bear."

Then there was a man's voice heard in the living room, and Christine
went to answer the call. It was the Domine's messenger, with his arms
full of books. And Christine had them taken into her mother's room,
and for a whole hour sat beside her and showed her books full of
pictures, and read short anecdotes from the magazine volume, and
Margot for a while seemed interested, but finally said with an air of
great weariness: "Tak' them all awa', dearie. Ye can hae the best
bedroom for them."

"Dear Mither, will you let me hae the use o' it? I will keep a' in
order, and it is sae near to yoursel', I could hear you if you only
spoke my name."