all never see again. She was one of those bleak people who make
the thought of getting up in the morning and dressing quite
insupportable. I don't think there was a detail in her domestic life
that she didn't touch on. She told me all her husband could eat and
couldn't eat; she called her children 'little tots,' and said she
couldn't get so much as a 'serviette' washed in the house. I thought
nobody talked of serviettes outside Wells and Arnold Bennett. Mrs.
Duff-Whalley rescued me in the nick of time before I could do anything
desperate, and then _she_ cross-examined me as to my reasons for coming
to Priorsford."

Jean laughed. "What a cheery afternoon! But it will be all right to-day.
Mrs. Hope never sees more than one or two people at a time. She is
pretty old, you see, and frail, though she has such an extraordinary
gift of being young. I do hope you will like each other. She has an edge
to her tongue, but she is an incomparable friend. The poor people go to
her in flocks, and she scolds them roundly, but always knows how to help
them in the only wise way. Her people have been in Priorsford for ages;
she knows every soul in the place, and is vastly amused at all the
little snobberies that abound in a small town. But she laughs kindly.
Pretentious people are afraid of her; simple people love her."

"Am I simple, Jean?"

Jean laughed and refused to give an opinion on the subject, beyond
quoting the words of Autolycus--"How blessed are we that are not simple
men."

They were in the Hopetoun Woods now, and at the end of the avenue could
see the house standing on a knoll by the river, whitewashed, dignified,
home-like.

"Talk to Mrs. Hope about the view," Jean advised "She is as proud of the
Hopetoun Woods as if she had made them. Isn't it a nice place? Old and
proud and honourable--like Mrs. Hope herself."

"Are there sons to inherit?"

Jean shook her head. "There were three sons. Mrs. Hope hardly ever
talks about them, but I've seen their photographs, and of course I have
often been told about them--by Great-aunt Alison, and others--and heard
how they died. They were very clever and good-looking and
well-liked--the kind of sons mothers are very proud of, and they all
died imperially, if that is an expression to use. Two died in India,
one--a soldier--in one of the Frontier skirmishes: the other--an I.C.S.
man--from over-working in a famine-stricken district. The youngest fell
in the Boer War ... so you see Mrs