"You that are old," Falstaff reminds the Chief Justice, "consider not the capacities of us that are young."  
One afternoon Jean called for Pamela to take her to see Mrs. Hope.
 
It was a clear, blue-and-white day, with clouds across the sky, and a cold, whistling wind that blew the fallen leaves along the dry roads—a day that made people walk smartly and gave the children apple-red cheeks and curls.
 
Mhor and Peter were seated on The Rigs garden wall as Pamela and Jean came out of Hillview gate. Peter wagged his tail in recognition, but Mhor made no sign of having seen his sister and her friend.
 
"Aren't you cold up there?" Pamela asked him.
 
"Very cold," said Mhor, "but we can't come down. We're on duty on the city wall till sundown," and he shaded his eyes with his hand and pretended to peer into space for .
 
Peter looked wistfully up at him and himself against the scratched bare knees now blue with cold.
 
"When the sun touches the top of West Law," said Jean, pointing to a distant blue peak, "it has set. See—there…. Now run in, sonny, and tell Mrs. M'Cosh to let you have some currant-loaf for tea. Pamela and I are going to tea at Hopetoun."
 
"Aw," said Mhor, "I hate when you go out to tea. So does Jock. So does
Peter. Look out! I'm going to jump."
He jumped and fell , barking his chin, but no howl came from him, and he picked himself up with dignity, merely asking for the loan of a handkerchief, his own "useful little hanky," as he explained, having been used to mop up a spilt ink-bottle.
 
Fortunately Jean had a spare handkerchief, and Pamela promised that on her return he should have a reel of sticking-plaster for his own use, so, but content, he returned to the house, Peter remaining behind to investigate a mole-heap.
 
"What a cheery day for November," Pamela remarked as they took the road by Tweedside. "Look at that tree against the blue sky, every black . Trees are wonderful in winter."
 
"Trees are wonderful always," said Jean. "'Solomon spake of trees'—I do wonder what he said. I suppose it would be the of Lebanon he 'spake' of, and the hyssop that grows in the walls, and sycamores, but he would have been worth hearing on a rowan tree flaming red against a blue September sky. Look at that newly ploughed field so softly brown, and the faded gold of the beech hedge. November is a cheery time. The only depressing time of the year to me is when the swallows go away. I can't bear to see them wheeling round and preparing to depart. I want so badly to go with them. It always brings back to me the feeling I had as a child when people read Hans Andersen to me—the in The King's Daughter, talking about the mud in Egypt. Imagine Priorsford swallows in Egypt!… As the song says:
 
  "'It's dowie at the hint o' hair'st
    At the way-gaun o' the swallow.'"
"What a lovely sound Lowland Scots has," said Pamela. "I like to hear you speak it. Tell me about Mrs. Hope, Jean. I do hope we shall see her alone. I don't like Priorsford tea-parties; they are rather like a foretaste of eternal punishment. With no choice you are dumped down beside the most sort of person, and there you remain. I went to return Mrs. Duff-Whalley's call the other day, and fell into one. Before I could retreat I was wedged into a chair beside a woman whom I hope I shall never see again. She was one of those people who make the thought of getting up in the morning and quite insupportable. I don't think there was a detail in her domestic life that she didn't touch on. She told me all her husband could eat and couldn't eat; she called her children 'little tots,' and said she couldn't get so much as a 'serviette' washed in the house. I thought nobody talked of serviettes outside Wells and Arnold Bennett. Mrs. Duff-Whalley rescued me in the nick of time before I could do anything desperate, and then she cross-examined me as to my reasons for coming to Priorsford."
 
Jean laughed. "What a cheery afternoon! But it will be all right to-day. Mrs. Hope never sees more than one or two people at a time. She is pretty old, you see, and , though she has such an extraordinary gift of being young. I do hope you will like each other. She has an edge to her tongue, but she is an incomparable friend. The poor people go to her in flocks, and she scolds them roundly, but always knows how to help them in the only wise way. Her people have been in Priorsford for ages; she knows every soul in the place, and is vastly amused at all the little snobberies that in a small town. But she laughs . people are afraid of her; simple people love her."
 
"Am I simple, Jean?"
 
Jean laughed and refused to give an opinion on the subject, beyond quoting the words of Autolycus—"How blessed are we that are not simple men."
 
They were in the Hopetoun Woods now, and at the end of the avenue could see the house on a by the river, , , home-like.
 
"Talk to Mrs. Hope about the view," Jean advised "She is as proud of the Hopetoun Woods as if she had made them. Isn't it a nice place? Old and proud and honourable—like Mrs. Hope herself."
 
"Are there sons to inherit?"
 
Jean shook her head. "There were three sons. Mrs. Hope hardly ever talks about them, but I've seen their photographs, and of course I have often been told about them—by Great-aunt Alison, and others—and heard how they died. They were very clever and good-looking and well-liked—the kind of sons mothers are very proud of, and they all died imperially, if that is an expression to use. Two died in India, one—a soldier—in one of the Frontier skirmishes: the other—an I.C.S. man—from over-working in a famine-stricken district. The youngest fell in the Boer War … so you see Mrs. Hope has the right to be proud. Aunt Alison used to tell me that she made no moan over her wonderful sons. She shut herself up for a short time, and then faced the world again, her kindly, sharp-tongued self. She is one of those splendid people who take the and arrows thrown at them by fortune and bury them deep in their hearts and go on, still able to laugh, still able to take an interest. Only, you mustn't speak to her of what she has lost. That would be too much."
 
"Yes," said Pamela. "I can understand that."
 
She stopped for a minute and stood looking at the river full of " water from the Border hills," at the stretches of lawn here and there by stone figures, at the trees thrawn with winter and rough weather, and she thought of the three boys who had played here, who had lived in the whitewashed house (she could see the barred nursery windows), bathed and fished in the Tweed, thrown stones at the grey stone figures on the lawn, climbed the trees in the Hopetoun Woods, and who had gone out with their happy young lives to lay them down in a far country.
 
Mrs. Hope was sitting by the fire in the drawing-room, a room full of flowers and books, and lit by four long windows. Two of the windows looked on to the lawns, and the stone figures chipped by generations of catapult-owning boys; the other two looked across the river into the Hopetoun Woods. The curtains were not though the lamps were lit, for Mrs. Hope liked to keep the river and the woods with her as long as light lasted, so the warm bright room looked warmer and brighter in contrast with the cold, water and the wind-shaken trees outside.
 
Mrs. Hope had been a beautiful woman in her day, and was still an attractive figure, her white hair dressed high and crowned with a square of lace tied in fashion under her chin. Her black dress was soft and becoming to her spare figure. There was nothing unsightly about her years; she made age seem a lovely, desirable thing. Not that her years were so very many, but she had lived every minute of them; also she had given and unsparingly of her store of sympathy and energy to others: and she had suffered grievously.
 
She kissed Jean affectionately, her for being long in coming, and turned eagerly to Pamela. New people still interested her . Here was a newcomer who promised well.
 
"Ah, my dear," she said in greeting, "I have wanted to know you. I'm told you are the most interesting person who ever came to this little town."
 
Pamela laughed. "There I am sure you have been misled. Priorsford is full of exciting people. I expected to be dull, and I have rarely been so well amused."
 
Mrs. Hope studied the charming face to her own. Her blue eyes were shrewd, and though she stood so near the end of the way she had lost none of her interest in the comings and goings of Vanity Fair.
 
"Is Priorsford amusing?" she said. "Well" (complacently), "we have our points. As Jane Austen wrote of the Misses Bingley, 'Our powers of conversation are considerable—we can describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an with humour, and laugh at our acquaintances with spirit.'"
 
"Laugh!" Jean . "Pamela, I must warn you that Mrs. Hope's laughter scares Priorsford to death. We speak her fair in order that she won't give us away to our neighbours, but we have no real hope that she doesn't see through us. Have we, Miss Augusta?" addressing the daughter of the house, who had just come into the room.
 
"Ah," said Mrs. Hope, "if everyone was as as you, Jean."
 
"Oh, don't," Jean pleaded. "You remind me that I am quite uninteresting when I am trying to make believe that I am subtle, or 'subtile,' as the Psalmist says of the fowler's ."
 
"Absurd child! Augusta, my dear, this is Miss Reston."
 
Miss Hope shook hands in her gentle, shy way, and busied herself putting small tables beside her mother and the two guests as the servant brought in tea. Her life was spent in doing small services.
 
Once, when Augusta was a child, someone asked her what s............