"'Dear Mr. David'--she's called me that these forty years, and before that it was Master David, and it doesn't seem as if she could break herself of the habit, though, mind you, I'm an M.D. of Edinburgh University, and legally entitled to the prefix 'Doctor,' which is more than can be said for a good many that's called it. 'It's beyond my thinking'--it's very colloquially written is this letter, which makes me the more sure that it's just her words which are set down in it--'It's beyond my thinking how you could have supposed that I could ever have turned my darling away from the door?--I never supposed anything of the kind, but that's by the way--'and refuse to let her in? My dear Miss Margaret! Mr. David, if I were dying I'd open the door if I knew that she was there--ay, I believe I would climb out of my grave to do it.' You observe what exaggerated language the woman uses? That's her all over. 'And to think that it should have been her on the day of which you speak--that awful day! I'll never forgive myself now that I know it.' That's her again. 'And, Mr. David, I'll find it hard to forgive you either.' That's the woman to a T--logical. 'If you'd never brought the creature to the house none of it would ever have happened, and my darling would never have been denied the door. And hot water thrown on her sweet head! How slow is the judgment of God!' Observe how she flies off at a tangent. 'Now I'll tell you the whole story. That day as I was lying in my bed, where she had laid me, I heard a great clatter in the house. When, after it was over, she came up to see me, I asked her what it was about. She said that a strange man had come begging to the house, and had tried to force himself into it, but that she had had to imitate my voice, to make him think it was me that was talking to him, before he would go. The insolence of her, that she should try to imitate her betters, and tell me of it to my face. And now it seems that it was no strange man at all, but just my darling who had come begging to be let into her own home. That wicked woman! Tell my sweet, when you see her, Mr. David, just how it was. And tell her if I had known it was she I would have crawled down, if it had been on my hands and knees, to undo the door, and bid her welcome. And say to her that there's none dearer to me in all the world than she is, and well she ought to know it. There is one prayer I offer constantly, that I may be spared to see her sweet face again, and hold her in my arms, and listen to her dear, soft voice. There is much more that I would say, but it cannot be written; it is only for her and for me.' Then the old woman goes off rambling; there is more, but nothing to the point. Here is her letter; you may read it for yourself if you like; there are tender messages by the yard. You'll see that that is not the epistle of a woman who would drive you from her door." "But I don't understand. Who does she mean imitated her voice?"