k, but I've wrastled through with tougher jobs in my time, and, please God, I'll wrastle through with this one.' It was in this spirit, I fear, though she ne

ding she laughed, because there was something droll to her in the sight of the words Auld Licht in print. For her, as for me, that newspaper was soon to have the face of a friend. To this day I never pass its placards in the street without shaking it by the hand, and she used to sew its pages together as lovingly as though they were a child's frock; but let the truth be told, when she read that first article she became alarmed, and fearing the talk of the town, hid the paper from all eyes. For some t

ies I might convert into articles, and they came to me in letters which she dictated to my sisters. How well I could hear her sayings between the lines: 'But the editor-man will never stand that, it's perfect blethers'-'By this post it must go, I tell you; we must take the editor when he's hungry-we canna be blamed for it, can we? he prints them of his free will, so the wite is his'-'But I'm near terrified.-If London folk reads them we're done for.' And I was sounded as to the advisability

London. Still, there they were, and it was with an effort that she summoned up courage to let me go. S

eeing me, and this, I would point out, was

young, and-and that would take him aba

ows my age

maybe he wouldna like

s my mann

say tha

just this, she thinks nobody has such manners as herself. Can

ed scorn, 'and tell me you don't think you could g

uld manage him,' says m

d you set

ind out first if he had a family, and then I wo

would do, you cunning woma

what great me

see thro

t h

at imposes on common folk wou

le, stupid or clever, the men are all alike

better ways of getting r

ay with conviction, 'but if you try that

er-you with your soft fac

ys my moth

son why you are so

ee it, but the

yourself if you were goin

wear my silk and

ey shawl and one of your bonny white mutches, and went in half smiling and half timid and said, "I am the mother of

and reply almost hotly, 'I tell you if I e

refuse to write for evermore. 'Ay, I like the article brawly,' she would say timidly, 'but I'm doubting it's the last-I always have a sort of terror the new one may be the last,' and if many days elapsed before the arrival of another article her face would say mournfully, 'The blow has fallen-he can think of nothing more to write about.' If I ever shared her fears I never told her so, and the articles that were not Scotch grew in number until there were hundreds of them, all carefully preserved by her: they were the only thing in the house that, having served one purpose, she did not convert into something else, yet they could give her uneasy moments. This was because I nearly always assumed a character when I wrote; I must be a country squire, or an undergraduate, or a butler, or a member of the House of Lords, or a dowager, or a lady called Sweet Seventeen, or an engineer in India, else was my pen clogged, and though

ory about the poor of my native land, so now the publishers, Scotch and English, refused to accept the book as a gift. I was willing to present it to them, but they would have it in no guise; there seemed to be a blight on everything that was Scotch. I daresay we sighed, but never were collaborators more prepared for rejection, and though my mother might look wistfully at the scorned manuscript at times and murmur, 'Y

what is a four-roomed house, what is thirty pounds, compared to the glory of being a member of a club? Where does the glory come in? Sal, you needna ask me, I'm just a doited auld stock that never set foot in a club, so it's little I ken about glory. But I may tell you if you bide in London and canna become member of a club, the best you can do is to tie a rope round your neck and slip out of the world. What use are they? Oh, they're terrible useful. You see it doesna do for a man in London to eat his dinner in his lodgings. Other men shake their heads at him. He maun away to his club if he is to be respected. Does he g

when these withering blasts were blowing

u so pugnacious

canna expect me to be sharp in the up

r. They are very particular about whom the

I think I can tell you to make your mind easy on that head. You'

be because the edit

ill thing I ev

s to get any of the t

een a good friend to us, but what maddens me is that eve

e-faced s

at have

bers have the cl

o' to be catch

t you bel

ll you swallow whatever they tell you. If the place belon

ep it

to pay for thei

have to pay ex

lack price,

e or six s

s nothing, I wonder the

she would at times cross-examine me as if her mind was not yet made up. 'Tell me th

not that ki

d out what kind of club it is. Do you

a pe

at New Yea

much as

rtal thing you get f

not one mo

nds is what you

mmittee e

are in the

dozen, I

that makes two p

before she came downstairs to congratulate me sarcastically. This was grand news, she said without a twinkle, and I must write and thank the committee, the noble critturs. I saw behind her mask, and maintained a dignified silence, but she would have another shot at me. 'And tell them,' she sai

ent per line, and I remember once overhearing a discussion between them about whether that sub-title meant another sixpence. Yes, she knew the value of money; she had always in the end got the things she wanted, but now she could get them more easily, and it turned her simple life into a fairy tale. So