"One of the three months gone! Perhaps at the beginning of the year I shall have had more than enough of it, and go gladly back to the fleshpots of Egypt and the Politician. "It is a dear thing a little town, 'a lovesome thing, God wot,' and Priorsford is the pick of all little towns. I love the shops and the kind, interested way the shopkeepers serve one: I have shopped in most European cities, but I never realised the full delight of shopping till I came to Priorsford. You can't think what fun it is to order in all your own meals, to decide whether you will have a 'finnan-haddie' or a 'kipper' for breakfast--much more exciting than ordering a ball gown. "I love the river, and the wide bridge, and the old castle keeping watch and ward, and the _pends_ through which you catch sudden glimpses of the solemn round-backed hills. And most of all I love the lights that twinkle out in the early darkness, every light meaning a little home, and a warm fireside and kindly people round it. "To live, as you and I have done all our lives, in houses where all the difficulties of life are kept in oblivion, and existence runs on well-oiled wheels is very pleasant, doubtless, but one misses a lot. I love the _nearness_ of Hillview, to hear Mawson and B.B. converse in the kitchen, to smell (this is the most comfortable and homely smell) the ironing of clean clothes, and to know (also by the sense of smell) what I am going to have for dinner hours before it comes. "Of course you will say, and probably with truth, that what I enjoy is the _newness_ of it, that if I knew that my life would be spent in such surroundings I would be profoundly dissatisfied. "I dare say. But in the meantime I am happy--happy in a contented, quiet way that I never knew before. "It is strange that our old friend Lewis Elliot is living near Priorsford, at a place called Laverlaw, about five miles up Tweed from here. Do you remember what good times we used to have with him when he came to stay with the Greys? That must be more than twenty years ago--you were a little boy and I was a wild colt of a girl. I don't think you have ever seen much of him since, but I saw a lot of him in London when I first came out. Then he vanished. Some years ago his uncle died and he inherited Laverlaw. He came to see me the other day, not a bit changed, the same dreamy, unambitious creature--rather an angel. I sometimes wonder if little Jean will one day go to Laverlaw. It would be very nice and fairy-tale-ish!" CHAPTER X "You that are old," Falstaff reminds the Chief Justice, "consider not the capacities of us that are young." One afternoon Jean called for Pamela to take her to see Mrs. Hope. It was a clear, blue-and-white day, with clouds scudding across the sky, and a cold, whistling wind that blew the fallen leaves along the dry roads--a day that made people walk smartly and gave the children apple-red cheeks and tangled curls.