to be); she hasn't that
Now-I-am-going-to-be-charming manner that is so difficult to bear. It is
such fun talking to her, for she is very--pliable I think is the word I
want. Accustomed to converse with people who constantly pull one up
short with an 'Ah, now I don't agree,' or 'There, I think you are quite
wrong,' it is wonderfully soothing to discuss things with someone who
has the air of being convinced by one's arguments. It is weak, I know,
but I'm afraid I agree with Mrs. M'Cosh, who described a friend as 'a
rale nice buddy. She clinks wi' every word ye say.'

"I am thinking to myself how Great-aunt Alison would have dreaded
Pamela's influence. She would have seen in her the personification of
the World, the Flesh, and the Devil--albeit she would have been much
impressed by her long descent: dear Aunt Alison.

"All the same, Davie, it is odd what an effect one's early training has.
D'you remember how discouraged G.-A. Alison was about our
levity--especially mine? She once said bitterly that I was like the
ell-woman--hollow--because I laughed in the middle of the Bible lesson.
And how antiquated and stuffy we thought her views, and took pleasure in
assuring ourselves that we had got far beyond them, and you spent an
evening tea-less in your room because you said you would rather be a
Buddhist than a Disruption Worthy--do you remember that?

"Yes, but Great-aunt Alison had builded better than she knew. When
Pamela laughs 'How Biblical!' or says in her pretty, soft voice that
our great-aunt's religion must have been a hard and ugly thing, I get
hot with anger and feel I must stick unswervingly to the antiquated
views. Is it because poor Great-aunt isn't here to make me? I don't
know.

"Mhor is really surprisingly naughty. Yesterday I heard angry shouts
from the road, and then I met Mhor sauntering in, on his face the
seraphic expression he wears when some nefarious scheme has prospered,
and in his hand the brass breakfast kettle. He had been pouring water on
the passers-by from the top of the wall. 'Only,' he explained to me, 'on
the men who wore hard black hats, who could swear.'

"I told him the police would probably visit us in the course of the
afternoon, and pointed out to him how ungentleman-like was his
behaviour, and he said he was sorry; but I'm afraid he will soon think
of some other wickedness.

"He thinks he can do anything he hasn't been told not to do, but how
could I foresee that he would want