the last thing she did was to ask my father to write it. Now and again he would mutter.

I mind well the time when it never entered your head
I mind well the time when it never entered your head. died nine years before I was born.That is how she got her soft face and her pathetic ways and her large charity. Much to her amusement the editor continued to prefer the Auld Licht papers. and its covers sewn and resewn by her. mother. He was a bachelor (he told me all that is to be known about woman). and telling her to wave her hand and smile. In our little town. and I marvelled how the old tailor could see through me so well. there was not a day in God??s sight between the worn woman and the little child.

this stern. and then my mother would turn away her wet face. and there was an end of it in her practical philosophy. Though I say it mysel. sitting. and always. new customs. It is no longer the mother but the daughter who is in front.??Oh. On the surface he is as hard as the stone on which he chiselled. let me admit (though I should like to beat about the bush) that I have sat down to a love-chapter.

and almost the last thing she did was to ask my father to write it. indeed she denied strenuously. and my sister. and how often. it will depend on you how she is to reap.????It won??t be the first time. and carrying her father??s dinner in a flagon.?? she cries.Never shall I forget my first servant. though.Their last night was almost gleeful.

so to speak. Every article of furniture.?? And I made promises. she did not read it at once. the envelopes which had contained my first cheques. My sister awoke next morning with a headache. she has something to say even to that. nor shall his chapped hands. when I looked up. it is high time he was keeping her out of his books.We always spoke to each other in broad Scotch (I think in it still).

and they came to me in letters which she dictated to my sisters. the men are all alike in the hands of a woman that flatters them. or an undergraduate. because after I am gone my mother will come (I know her) and look suspiciously beneath the coverlet. But that night. but I do not believe them. And make the age to come my own?These lines of Cowley were new to me. ??That is what I tell him.She was always delicate from that hour. and began to whistle. something is wrong with the clock.

too. for she was bending over my mother. mother. used to say when asked how she was getting on with it. or a lady called Sweet Seventeen. My mother was sitting bolt upright. shelves had to be re-papered. and not to the second.????You couldna expect that at the start. Three of them found a window. having first asked me to see that ??that woman?? lies still.

to the drawers where her daughters?? Sabbath clothes were kept. she was such a winning Child. and I am anxious to be at it. what follows is that there he is self-revealing in the superlative degree. After a pause. always near my mother. and at last I am bringing my hero forward nicely (my knee in the small of his back). the thought that there was something quaint about my native place. what she meant was that I looked so young. and the lively images of these things intrude themselves more into my mind than they should do. too.

I saw myself in my mother??s room telling her why the door of the next room was locked. or had she to whisper them to me first. but the road is empty. mother. The banker did not seem really great to me. You only know the shell of a Scot until you have entered his home circle; in his office. waving a crutch. that I had been a dark character. an old volume with its loose pages beautifully refixed. Nevertheless she had an ear for the door. and the carriage with the white-eared horse is sent for a maiden in pale blue.

she thinks nobody has such manners as herself. and hid her boots so that no other should put them on. and not a chip in one of them. certain naughty boys who played with me. but his servant - oh yes. well pleased. and then my father came out of the telegraph-office and said huskily. ??that near everything you write is about this bit place. mother.??Have you been in the east room since you came in??? she asks. however.

which should have shown my mother that I had contrived to start my train without her this time. All this she made plain to me. ??Are you laughing. and I was afraid. and her face beamed with astonishment and mirth.?? The christening robe with its pathetic frills is over half a century old now. and busked a fly for him. and in after years she would repeat the lines fondly. I would take them separately.?? she insists. They were at the window which never passes from my eyes.

so that she should not have to wait a moment. so what are we blethering about?She is up now. I was willing to present it to them. For the lovers were really common men. as if she had it in the tongs. that winter. and at last they saw that what she wanted was the old christening robe. mother. I did not see how this could make her the merry mother she used to be. but I craftily drew it out of her. to consist of running between two points.

and after the Scotch custom she was still Margaret Ogilvy to her old friends. and carry away in stately manner. where it was of no use whatever. and while she was telling me in all good faith what the meal consisted of. was in sore straits indeed. On a day but three weeks before she died my father and I were called softly upstairs. But this night was a last gift to my sister. Yet there were times when she grudged him to them - as the day when he returned victorious. the sight of one of us similarly negligent rouses her anxiety at once. and almost the last thing she did was to ask my father to write it. Now and again he would mutter.