not to my first, because—well, as it was my first, there would naturally be something of my mother in it, and not to the second, as it was my first novel and not much esteemed even in our family. (But the little touches of my mother in it are not so bad.) Let us try the story about the minister.
My mother's first remark is decidedly damping. "Many a time in my young days," she says, "I played about the Auld Licht manse, but I little thought I should live to be the mistress of it!"
"But Margaret is not you."
"N—no, oh no. She had a very different life from mine. I never let on to a soul that she is me!"
"She was not meant to be you when I began. Mother, what a way you have of coming creeping in!"
"You should keep better watch on yourself."
"Perhaps if I had called Margaret by some other name——"
"I should have seen through her just the same. 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."
