"Mrs. Burnett looked like an abbess," Mrs. Douglas said. "She always wore a soft black dress--cashmere or silk--and a tiny white lace shawl turned back over her white hair. The style of dress suited her perfectly, for she was very tall and graceful, and glided rather than walked. I admired her very much, being so far from dignified myself, and I used to wonder how she kept so perfectly tidy and unruffled when I always looked as if I had been in the heart of a whirlwind." "Oh, Mother!" laughed Ann, "just look at the difference in the two lives! Mrs. Burnett with her family grown up, a household running on well-oiled wheels, and a serenity partly natural and partly gained through long years' experience; you in the very forefront of the battle, with an incredibly wild and wicked family, a church to run, small means, and not an ounce of serenity anywhere in your little active body." "Well, but now that I have leisure I'm not any more serene," Mrs. Douglas complained. "But it was comfort unspeakable just to see Mrs. Burnett, to know that she was near. We used to think that she sat and wondered what she would send us next, she loved so to give." "I never smell a hyacinth," said Ann, "but I think of Mrs. Burnett. She always sent us the very first pot of hyacinths that came out in the greenhouse." Mrs. Douglas nodded. "Mrs. Burnett would like to be remembered by spring flowers. She loved them as she loved all young things. Her one little grandson, Jimmie, was the same age as Davie. Her great regret when she was dying was that she wouldn't see the two boys grow up. Ah, but if she could have known--they didn't grow up very far. Jimmie was killed at the landing in Gallipoli, and Davie at Arras, when they were still only little boys." "You have always been well off for friends, Mother," Ann said, breaking a silence. "In Inchkeld, in Kirkcaple, Glasgow. It's because you are such a friendly person yourself." "Oh, me! I often feel myself a poor creature, with little to give in return for treasure-houses opened to me." Ann laughed unbelievingly and said, "I'm bound to admit we have had some wonderful friends--Miss Barbara Stewart for one. She was one of your three friends, wasn't she?" "Indeed she was! Miss Barbara--to say her name gives me a warm feeling at my heart."