There is scarce a house in all my books where I have not seemed to see you a thousand times, bending over the fireplace or winding up the clock.' 'And yet you used to be in such a quandary because you knew nobody you could make your women-folk out of! Do you mind that, and how we both laughed at the notion of your having to make them out of me ?' 'I remember.' 'And now you've gone back to my father's time.

It's more than sixty years since I carried his dinner in a flagon through the long parks of Kinnordy.' 'I often go into the long parks, mother, and sit on the stile at the edge of the wood till I fancy I see a little girl coming toward me with a flagon in her hand.' 'Jumping the burn (I was once so proud of my jumps!) and swinging the flagon round so quick that what was inside hadna time to fall out.

I used to wear a magenta frock and a white pinafore.

Did I ever tell you that ?' 'Mother, the little girl in my story wears a magenta frock and a white pinafore.' 'You minded that! But I'm thinking it wasna a lassie in a pinafore you saw in the long parks of Kinnordy, it was just a gey done auld woman.' 'It was a lassie in a pinafore, mother, when she was far away, but when she came near it was a gey done auld woman.' 'And a fell ugly one!' 'The most beautiful one I shall ever see.' 'I wonder to hear you say it.

Look at my wrinkled auld face.' 'It is the sweetest face in all the world.' 'See how the rings drop off my poor wasted finger.' 'There will always be someone nigh, mother, to put them on again.' 'Ay, will there! Well I know it.