"Yes. It was the last time we were all together--two years after Mark's marriage. Mark took Fennanhopes, which held us all comfortably, and there was good shooting. Alis was a year old, and the idol of her uncles. Davie was about fourteen, I suppose. Robbie was particularly pleased that Davie showed signs of being a good shot, and poor Davie was so anxious to please that he fired at and brought down a snipe, and then suffered agonies of remorse over killing what he described as 'that wee long-nebbit bird.'" "I remember that," said Ann. "Mother, wasn't it odd how like Robbie and Davie were? Plain little Davie and Robbie who was so good-looking. After Robbie was gone, when Davie and I were together in a room, I used to shut my eyes and make myself almost believe it was Robbie talking to me--and both were so like Father. It must have been the way they moved, and the gentle way they touched things--and the way they fell over things! Mark called Davie 'light-footed Ariel,' from his capacity for taking tosses. They were such friends, Father and the four boys, and Father was the youngest of the lot." Mrs. Douglas sat with her hands clasped in her lap, looking straight before her. When she spoke it was as if she were speaking to herself. "Robbie used to say that it was a mistake for a family to be too affectionate, for when we were parted we were homesick for each other all the time. But he wrote once: 'Foreign service must be a cheerless business for the unclannish....'" "Mother," Ann said gently, "I think you can almost say Robbie's letters by heart. It wasn't so bad saying good-bye to him, after his first leave--at least, not for me, for I was going out to him for the next cold weather. And Mark's marriage was our next excitement; we were frightfully unused to marriages in our family, for you had no brothers or sisters married, and Father had none. Had you and Father proved such an awful example?" "It is odd," Mrs. Douglas agreed; "but some families are like that. Others flop into matrimony like young ducks into water. Mark's engagement gave me a great shock. It came as a complete surprise, and we knew nothing about Charlotte, and it seemed to me that it must break up everything, and that I must lose my boy."