"I could wish them a better job! Hoo onybody can like clartin' aboot in folks' insides! Doctorin's a nesty job, and I'm glad nane o' oor laddies took up wi't. They a' got clean, genteel jobs."
"Oh, I'm no' heedin' muckle aboot sodgerin' aither," said Marget. Then, turning to her mistress, she said, "As you say, Mem, nae doctor can kill ye while there's life in the cup. D'ye think it was mebbe the flittin' that brocht on yer trouble? Ye ken ye washt a' the china yersel'."
Mrs. Douglas smiled at her. "All the years you've known me, Marget, have you ever heard of housework doing me any harm? No. It was some sort of blood-poisoning that went away as mysteriously as it came. Though what I was spared for I know not. If I had died, how often you would have said of me, 'She was taken from the evil to come.'"
"Poor darling!" said Ann. "Do you think you were spared simply that you might receive evil things? Say, rather, that you were spared to help the rest of us through the terrible times.... Father, mercifully, had kept wonderfully well through your illness. He had accepted his limitations and knew that he must not attempt a hill road, or fight against a high wind, or move quickly; and really, looking at him, it was difficult to believe that anything ailed him."
"But it must have been very bad for him, Ann, all the scares he got with my illness. It's dreadful for me to think that the last year of his life was made uncomfortable and distressed by me."
"But you mustn't think that. Even in those stormy days he seemed to carry about with him a quiet, sunny peace. What a blessing we had him through that time; the sight of him steadied one."
"And I'm sure I couldn't have lived through that time without him," Mrs. Douglas said; "although I sometimes got very cross with him sitting reading with a pleased smile on his face when I felt so miserable."
"I think he really enjoyed his restricted life," said Ann. "To be in the open air was his delight, and he was able to take two short walks every day and spend some time pottering in the garden, going lovingly round his special treasures, those rock plants that he was trying to persuade to grow on the old wall by the waterside. We wanted him to drive, but he hated driving; he liked, he said, to feel the ground under his feet. He never looked anything but well with his fresh-coloured face."