"Yes," Mrs. Douglas confessed. "It was the first one we ever had, and you know the sort of madness that seizes you when you see people eager to buy. I rushed home and looked out everything we could do without--my wedding slippers among the lot. And poor old Mrs. Buchanan, in a sort of ecstasy of sacrifice, climbed up to her kitchen shelf and brought down the copper kettle that in her saner moments she cherished like saffron, and threw it on the pyre. The sale was for Women's Foreign Missions, and when at the end of the most strenuous evening any of us had ever spent the treasurer and I lugged our takings home in a cab, her husband met us at the door, and, lifting the heavy bag, said, 'I doubt it's Alexander the coppersmith.' But it wasn't; it was fully £100. Dear, dear, the excitements of a ministerial life!" CHAPTER III "Now that the visitors are gone," said Ann, "we'll go on with our wedding number. Who complained of the dullness of the Green Glen? Three visitors--the whole neighbourhood you may say--in one afternoon: first the parson, then the two Miss Scotts. As I came down the burnside I saw them go up to the door, and I said to myself in the words of the old beadle who was asked what sort of congregation was gathering: 'Graund! Twa weemen pourin' in.' Didn't you like them, Mother? The Miss Scotts, I mean? I thought their weather-beaten faces very attractive, and their voices so surprisingly soft and clear. Somehow I had expected voices rather loud and strident, to go with their workman-like clothes and heavy boots. The younger one specially attracted me--they way she beamed through her spectacles and said 'Yes' unexpectedly, whenever a pause occurred in the conversation. They are going to help me a lot with the garden; their own place is lovely. It's a nice happy way to end one's days--living peacefully among growing flowers! Think of all the old women who live in hotels and boarding-houses, quite comfortable, I dare say, so far as fires and light and a good bed, and well-cooked food go, but so barren of all interest except a morbid curiosity about their fellow-prisoners! How spacious a country life is! ..." "Oh yes," her mother broke in impatiently; "but hotel life can be very interesting, and there is nothing I enjoy so much as watching my neighbours.... I wonder why Mr. Sharp likes telling funny stories?" "Shyness goads him to it," Ann said. "It's the same thing that makes me chatter like a swallow when I am with impressive people and ought to hold my peace. He's a decent lad, Mr. Sharp, but I wish that when I meet him outside he wouldn't treat me like a funeral. He doesn't look at me, but removes his hat when passing. Shyness again, I suppose." "He has a housekeeper," Mrs. Douglas said, as she picked up a stitch. "It's a pity he hasn't a wife. In a quiet place like this the Manse should be a centre for the district. Don't you think, Ann, if we asked Nina Strachen, or----"