sman_ and the
_Missionary Magazine_ (she is very keen on Foreign Missions), but she
doesn't object to listening to Mawson's garbled accounts of the books
she reads. I sometimes overhear their conversations as they sit together
by the kitchen fire in the long evenings.

"'And,' says Mawson, describing some lurid work of fiction, 'Evangeline
was left shut up in the picture-gallery of the 'ouse.'

"'D'ye mean to tell me hooses hev picture-galleries?' says Bella.

"'Course they 'ave--all big 'ouses.'

"'Juist like the Campbell Institution--sic a bother it must be to dust!'

"'Well,' Mawson goes on, 'Evangeline finds 'er h'eyes attracted--'

"Again Bella interrupts. 'Wha was Evangeline? I forget aboot her.'

"'Oh, don't you remember? The golden-'aired 'eroine with vilet eyes.'

"'I mind her noo. The yin wi' the black hair was the bad yin.'

"'Yes, she was called 'Ermione. Well, Evangeline finds 'er h'eyes
attracted to the picture of a man dressed like a cavalier.'

"'What's that?'

"'I don't rightly know,' Mawson confesses. 'Kind of a fancy dress, I
believe, but anyway 'er h'eyes were attracted to the picture, and as she
fixed 'er h'eyes on it the _h'eyes in the picture_ moved.'

"'Oh, murder!' says Bella, much thrilled.

"'You may say it. Murder it was, h'attempted murder, I should say, for
of course it would never do to murder the vilet-h'eyed 'eroine. As it
'appened ...' and so on ...

"One of the three months gone! Perhaps at the beginning of the year I
shall have had more than enough of it, and go gladly back to the
fleshpots of Egypt and the Politician.

"It is a dear thing a little town, 'a lovesome thing, God wot,' and
Priorsford is the pick of all little towns. I love the shops and the
kind, interested way the shopkeepers serve one: I have shopped in most
European cities, but I never realised the full delight of shopping till
I came to Priorsford. You can't think what fun it is to order in all
your own meals, to decide whether you will have a 'finnan-haddie' or a
'kipper' for breakfast--much more exciting than ordering a ball gown.

"I love the river, and the wide bridge, and the old castle keeping watch
and ward, and the _pends_ through which you catch sudden glimpses of the
solemn round-backed hills. And most of all I love the lights that
twinkle out in the early darkness, every light meaning a little home,
and a warm fireside and kindly people round it.

"To live, as you and I have done all our