"But, my dear," said her daughter, "just think how you will appreciate Priorsford when you get back. We are very much alone just now--it was an odd chance that sent Mark and Charlotte to India and Jim to South Africa the same winter--but don't let's have to remember it as the winter of our discontent.... We must face facts. Neighbours we have almost none. Mr. Sharp, at the Manse, is practically the only one, and he is so shy that speaking to him is like trying to carry on a conversation with a very young rabbit in a trap. The Scotts aren't so very far away as the crow flies, only over the other side of the hill, but it is five miles round by the road. It's an unpeopled world, but the great thing to remember is that any moment you please you can have a case packed, order the pony trap, drive to the station, buy a ticket, and in about two hours you would be in Glasgow, in the Central Station Hotel, among all the city gentlemen, feasting your eyes on people, forgetting the owls in listening to the Glasgow accent, eating large meals, frequenting picture houses...." Mrs. Douglas dropped both her book and stocking in her indignation. "Ann, you know I _never_ enter a picture house, and I haven't the least desire to go to Glasgow in the meantime." "I tell you what," Ann cried, "go in for a course of reading and improve your mind. It's an opportunity that may not occur again." "I'm too old to improve my mind; besides, it isn't very nice of you to suggest that it needs improving." Ann studied her mother with her head on one side. "You're sixty, aren't you? Sixty's nothing. The late Mr. Gladstone learned Arabic when he was eighty. Besides, you are the most absurd person for sixty I ever saw. Your hair is as soft and brown as it was when you were thirty, and you have a complexion that is the envy of less fortunate women. And the odd thing is, I believe you hate to be told so. I believe you want to look old." "Last summer," said Mrs. Douglas, "I overheard Rory say to Alison, 'Alis, Gran is nearly sixty; I heard her say so,' and Alis, with a depth of pity in her voice, replied, 'Oh, poor Gran!' But when I think I'm only sixty I feel like pitying myself. In the _Times_ last night there were six people among the 'Deaths' who were over ninety. It frightens me to think that I may live to a great age, and, perhaps, see you all go before me--and I get so wearied sometimes for your father and the boys...." Ann laid her hand on her mother's. "I know," she said, "I know. But, Mother, are those who are gone so much more dear to you than we who are left? As Pharaoh said to Hadad: 'What hast thou lacked with us, that, behold, thou seekest to go to thine own country?'" "Ah, my dear, _nothing_, but..."