Much to her amusement the editor
continued to prefer the Auld Licht papers, however, as was proved
(to those who knew him) by his way of thinking that the others
would pass as they were, while he sent these back and asked me to
make them better. Here again she came to my aid. I had said that
the row of stockings were hung on a string by the fire, which was a
recollection of my own, but she could tell me whether they were
hung upside down. She became quite skilful at sending or giving me
(for now I could be with her half the year) the right details, but
still she smiled at the editor, and in her gay moods she would say,
'I was fifteen when I got my first pair of elastic-sided boots.
Tell him my charge for this important news is two pounds ten.'
'Ay, but though we're doing well, it's no' the same as if they were
a book with your name on it.' So the ambitious woman would say
with a sigh, and I did my best to turn the Auld Licht sketches into
a book with my name on it. Then perhaps we understood most fully
how good a friend our editor had been, for just as I had been able
to find no well-known magazine - and I think I tried all - which
would print any article or story about the poor of my native land,
so now the publishers, Scotch and English, refused to accept the
book as a gift. I was willing to present it to them, but they
would have it in no guise; there seemed to be a blight on
everything that was Scotch.
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