"Ah, but I'm not like that. Envy! I'm sometimes chock-full of it----"
The door opened and Marget came in. She was primed with an excuse for her appearance, but Ann didn't give her time to make it.
"Come away, Marget, and hear all about Birkshaw, and tell me what has been happening since I went away. I've just been saying to Mother that I'm very glad to be back."
Ann pulled forward a chair, which Marget accepted primly.
"I dare say ye are. We 'gree fine, the fower o' us."
"And yet, Marget," said Ann, "I have just been reading a book by a very clever woman in which she says that women cannot live together with any profit. They fester. That is the ugly expression she uses."
Marget gave a disgusted snort. "Mebbe thae saft scented weemen, aggravatin' and clawin' at each other like cats, no' weemen wi' self-respect an' wark to do. A' the same, I'm no' sayin' I'll no' be glad when Maister Jimmie comes hame. I like a man aboot the hoose. It's kin o' hertless work cookin' for weemen; hauf the time they're no' heedin' what they're eatin'."
"Ah, Marget," said her mistress, "it's not like the days when the boys were all home from school and you couldn't make a pudding big enough."
Marget shook her head sadly. "It is not, Mem," she said, and then, turning suddenly to Ann, she asked, "Hoo's the _Life_ gettin' on?"
Ann jumped up and went to the writing-table. "That reminds me I've no business to be sitting roasting my face at the fire when I haven't written a word for nights."
She found a notebook and pencil and came back to the fireside. "The Moncrieffs will be on us before we are half finished. We've got to Glasgow, Marget. Tell me your first impression of that great city."
Marget sat forward with one hand on each knee.
"Eh, I thocht it was an awfu' place. D'ye mind, Mem, thon day you took me awa' into Argyle Street to see the 'Poly'--a place mair like a toun than a shop? I was fair fear't."
Mrs. Douglas, picking up a stitch, stopped to laugh.
"That was a great day, Marget. You suddenly found yourself looking into a long mirror, and you turned to me and said, 'Eh, I say--there's a wumman awfu' like ma sister.'"
"Didn't you know yourself, Marget?" Ann asked.
"No' me. I had never seen the whole o' masel' afore, an' how was I to ken I was sic a queer-lookin' body?"