andmamma, for she had had the care of their Parents during 11 years
of her brother Alexander's widowhood. But Aunt Margaret could play a
capital game of whist--long whist. I could see that she missed it much
on Sunday. It was her only relaxation. She had given up the farm to
James Brodie, who had married her cousin Jane, the eldest of the two
children she had mothered, and he had to come to the farm once or twice
a week, having a still larger farm of his own in East Lothian, and a
stock farm in Berwickshire also to look after. The son of the old farm
steward, John Burnet, was James Brodie's steward, and I think the farm
was well managed, but not so profitable as in old times. Aunt Mary
said, in her own characteristic way, "she always knew that her sister
was a clever woman, but that the cleverest thing she had done was
taking up farming and carrying it on for 30 years when it was
profitable, and turning it over when it began to fall off." But she
turned it over handsomely, and did not interfere in the management. My
Aunt Mary deserves a chapter for herself. She was my beau ideal of what
a maiden aunt should be, though why she was never married puzzles more
than me. Between my mother and her there was a love passing the love of
sisters--my father liked her better than his own sisters. When my
letter announcing my probable visit reached her she misread it, and
thought it was Helen herself who was to come; and when she found out
her mistake she shed many tears. I was all very well in my way, but I
was not Helen. It was not the practice in old times to blazon an
engagement, or to tell of an offer that had been declined; but my
mother firmly believed that her sister Mary, the cleverest and, as she
thought, the handsomest of the five sisters, had never in her life had
an offer of marriage, although she had a love disappointment at 30. She
had fixed her affections on a brilliant but not really worthy man, and
she had to tear him out of her heart with considerable difficulty. It
cost her a severe illness, out of which she emerged with what she
believed to be a change of heart. She was a converted Christian. I
myself don't think there was so much change. She was always a noble,
generous woman, but she found great happiness in religion. Aunt Mary's
disappointment made her most sympathetic to all love stories, and
without any disappointment at all, I think I may say the same of
myself. She was very popular with the young friends of