"It's odd," said Ann, "to think of Glasgow as the 'Scottish Oxford' of the seventeenth-century traveller. How pretty it must have been, with gardens going down to the Clyde, a college in the High Street, an old cathedral on a hill overlooking the city, and with so clear an air that a mountain called 'Ben Lomond' could be seen by the shopkeepers of King Street. Alack-a-day! the green places have been laid waste.... Mother, do you remember on winter nights as we sat round the fire how we sometimes used to hear men calling 'Call-er oy-sters? That is the most vivid recollection that has remained with me of those Glasgow days--a November evening with a touch of the fog that frost was apt to bring, a clear fire burning in the nursery grate, books and games scattered about, and through the misty stillness outside the cry, 'Call-er oy-sters.' I used to lift a corner of the blind to look out, wondering if I would see some wandering sailorman with a pokeful of oysters on his back--but there was nothing, nothing but the strangely mournful cry." "Glasgae folk," said Marget, who had not been listening, but thinking her own thoughts, "are awfu' easy to ken and rale nice, but they're no' so hospitable as they get the name for bein'." "Why, Marget," cried Mrs. Douglas, astonished, "Glasgow people are considered the very essence of hospitality." Marget set her mouth obstinately. "Weel, Mem, it's mebbe as you say, but I've sat whole nichts in their hooses an' they never so much as said to me, 'Collie, wull ye lick?' When ye went into a hoose at Kirkcaple the first thing they did was to pit on the kettle. Glasgae folk made a great fuss aboot ye, but they're no' great at offerin' ye meat." "This," said Ann, sharpening a pencil, "is quite a new light on Glasgow people. They are accused of many things, but seldom of inhospitality." "Well, I must say," said Mrs. Douglas, "that I missed in Glasgow the constant interchange of hospitality that we had in Kirkcaple. For instance, when your father exchanged with another minister it was always a question of staying the week-end; and, if the minister who came to help at the Communion was a friend, his wife (if he had one) was always invited with him. And then we had endless parties, and people dropping in casually all the time, as is the friendly country way. In a big city everything is different. Ministers came to preach, but we only saw them for a few minutes in the vestry; they had no time to come out to us for a meal. Everything was a rush; we had all so much to do that there was little coming and going between the different ministers' wives. Almost our only meeting-place was the house in which the Clerical Club was held once a month, when papers were read and we had tea."