"In her youth," said Mrs. Douglas, "Miss Barbara was a great worker in the slums of Glasgow, but when I knew her she wasn't able for that, and people had to go to her. The clergy waited on her by the dozen, and everyone else who wanted money for good works, not to speak of many who were mere cranks and charlatans. Everyone who came was admitted, and Miss Barbara wouldn't have listened to a word against any of them." "No," said Ann; "she would have said with Falstaff, 'Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men'; or, rather, she wouldn't, for she had probably never heard of Falstaff, and thought that anyone who could read Shakespeare for pleasure was eccentric almost to madness. If you told her of a book you had enjoyed, she would say, 'Is it true? No? Well, then----' But everyone who went to No. 10 got a hearing." "Everyone got a hearing," said Mrs. Douglas, "and whatever else they got, you may be sure a good tea was never wanting. Many a tired and hungry voyager on life's ocean found sanctuary at No. 10. You remember when I had that bad breakdown, and you were all worn out with me, how Miss Barbara took me to No. 10 and coaxed and scolded me back to health! And I was too miserably ill and weak even to pretend gratitude, and, driving with her, I used to envy all the happy people walking on their own feet, and one day she said to me, with an amused twinkle in her eyes, 'Ay, and you never thought to pity the poor folk in their carriages before.'' "I think she was funniest at Etterick," said Ann. "She kept regretting all the time the street lamps and pavements, and the sight of Tweed winding in links through the glens vexed her practical soul. 'What a waste!' she said; 'couldn't it be cut straight like a canal?' Father's face! How Miss Barbara would have hated the Green Glen!" She jumped up to open the door for the Tatler. "He's tired of us. He wants to try Marget and Mysie. Who was your third great friend, Mother? You had so many, I'm interested to know which you considered your greatest." "Mrs. Lang." "Oh, of course--Mrs. Lang. She's been dead for a long time now." Mrs. Douglas sighed. "Nearly all my friends are dead." "Because," said Ann, "you always liked old people best, and made your friends among women much older than yourself. And now you mourn and say your friends are nearly all gone, and talk about the elect being gathered in--but, elect or not, people are apt to be gathered in if they are over eighty."