She thought life was made so unnecessarily hard, not by real circumstances, but by the way those circumstances were dealt with. She saw no hardship, where health and strength existed, in self-denial for those who were loved. She was completely out of sympathy with people who suffered acutely from what they falsely considered a loss of dignity. She had seven children, a very moderate income, and two servants. If those servants were busy or out, or hard at work, she opened her own front door and saw no harm in it; just as on Sunday she took the milk in when her servants were in church. To say that she had arrived at doing this without some trouble would be untrue, because all her neighbours thought her dreadfully wanting in that high standard of gentility that was their own. But no woman is consistent without having a certain power and influence amongst her fellows. She had splendid health, and her powers of repartee were so well known that no one cared to lay themselves open to an answer--her absence of ill-health giving her a command of temper that always placed her in an advantageous position. She was extremely sorry for Mrs. Dorriman: to be alone as she was, to have to face the world without any backbone (which was her way of putting it) was to her, like expecting a fish to swim deprived of its fins. Nothing more gracious, more kindly, can be conceived than her manner to the poor lady who so required it, and one slight effect of her influence was amusing enough. Instead of leaving the bank and going to fetch the pony-carriage, Mrs. Dorriman boldly sent for it to come and take her up there. CHAPTER II. Mrs. Dorriman drove home, well wrapped-up, and in a glow of feeling which would have been difficult to analyse. To one who is, as a rule, in an undecided state of mind, the very fact of having come to a decision is a comfortable feeling: besides this, there had been friendliness and kindness just at the moment the poor woman had been sorely needing both--and, though directly opposed to poetical ideas, it may here be surely confessed that excellent food--daintily set before her, and proffered with that true hospitality which nowhere is more real than in Scotland, and was conspicuous in Mrs. Macfarlane--had its share. Then the support a cheerful, honest, and direct person (above all petty prejudices, and seeing facts disentangled from all complications) is capable of giving, had a most beneficial influence. Mrs. Dorriman's character had suffered in a long and weary contest against petty tyranny--just as a tender sapling may live and grow exposed to adverse and cruel winds, but it will be bent, and twisted, and gnarled, and finally grow stunted and fixed in one direction--an existing proof of the severity to which it was exposed when too young to stand against it.