"It's a game that never palls," Ann said; "planning what you would do if you got a sudden fortune. I'm quite sure the real owners of riches don't get half as much pleasure out of their wealth as the paupers who have it only in dreams. And what followed after the large breakfast? Did you spend the whole day in the assembling of yourselves together? Attending the Assembly is like some sort of insidious drug: the more you do it, the more you want to do it. Since I have been your companion at its deliberations I have found that I can sit in it quite happily for hours. You wouldn't miss the Assembly week for a lot even now, would you? It is odd how the sight of ministers in the mass seems to do you good. Absolutely you get quite sleek by merely looking at them. Do you remember when you were so very ill in London you kept worrying Sir Armstrong to know if you would be better for the Assembly, and the poor doctor said to Mark, 'Your mother is very anxious to go to some assembly; but she _couldn't dance_?'" Mrs. Douglas laughed and then sighed. "I enjoy it still," she said; "but the Assembly Hall is a place of ghosts to me now. There are so few of the faces that once I knew. I look up at my old place in the Ladies' Gallery--I never aspired to the Moderator's Gallery in those days. I always sat in the same seat, and then your father knew where to look up and smile to me during debates. I often sat very nervous, for he had a dreadful way of always being on the wrong side--I mean by that the unpopular side--and it wasn't nice for me to hear him shouted at. I thought he cared far too little for what people thought; he had no interest in which way the cat was going to jump; he never thought of taking the safe course simply because it was safe and would pay best. I remember after one stormy debate in which he had held the most unpopular view a lady beside me said, 'Can you tell me who that unpleasant minister is?' and I said, 'I think he comes from Glasgow.' But my sins found me out almost at once, for, on his way out to vote, your father stood and grinned up at me, looking like a mischievous schoolboy who knows he's going to get a row, and I had to smile at him--and the lady beside me glared at us both suspiciously."