As soon as I heard
she was the mother I began to laugh. In some ways, though, she's
no' so very like me. She was long in finding out about Babbie.
I'se uphaud I should have been quicker.'
'Babbie, you see, kept close to the garden-wall.'
'It's not the wall up at the manse that would have hidden her from
me.'
'She came out in the dark.'
'I'm thinking she would have found me looking for her with a
candle.'
'And Gavin was secretive.'
'That would have put me on my mettle.'
'She never suspected anything.'
'I wonder at her.'
But my new heroine is to be a child. What has madam to say to
that?
A child! Yes, she has something to say even to that. 'This beats
all!' are the words.
'Come, come, mother, I see what you are thinking, but I assure you
that this time - '
'Of course not,' she says soothingly, 'oh no, she canna be me'; but
anon her real thoughts are revealed by the artless remark, 'I
doubt, though, this is a tough job you have on hand - it is so long
since I was a bairn.'
We came very close to each other in those talks. 'It is a queer
thing,' she would say softly, 'that near everything you write is
about this bit place. You little expected that when you began. I
mind well the time when it never entered your head, any more than
mine, that you could write a page about our squares and wynds. I
wonder how it has come about?'
There was a time when I could not have answered that question, but
that time had long passed.
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