"Oh, Pamela, I am glad to see you. David says I am using the money in
such a stuffy way. Do you think I am?"

"What does David want you to do?" Pamela asked, as she threw off her
coat and knelt before the fire to warm her hands.

"'To eat your supper in a room
Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall
And twenty naked girls to change your plate?'"

Jean laughed. "Something like that, I suppose. Anyway he wants a smart
parlour-maid at once, and a motor-car. Also he wants me to wear
earrings, and talk slang, and wear the newest sort of clothes."

"Poor Penny-plain, are you going to be forced into being twopence
coloured? But I think you should get another maid; you have too much to
do. And a car would be a great interest to you. Jock and Mhor would love
it too: you could go touring all round in it. You must begin to see the
world now. I think, perhaps, David is right. It is rather stuffy to
stick in the same place (even if that place is Priorsford) when the
whole wide world is waiting to be looked at.... I remember a dear old
cure in Switzerland who, when he retired from his living at the age of
eighty, set off to see the world. He told me he did it because he was
quite sure when he entered heaven's gate the first question God would
put to him would be, 'And what did you think of My world?' and he wanted
to be in a position to answer intelligently.... He was an old dear. When
you come to think of it, it is a little ungrateful of you, Jean, not to
want to taste all the pleasures provided for the inhabitants of this
earth. There is no sense in useless extravagance, but there is a certain
fitness in things. A cottage is a delicious thing, but it is meant for
the lucky people with small means; the big houses have their uses too.
That's why so many rich people have discontented faces. It's because to
them L200 a year and a cottage is 'paradise enow' and they are doomed to
the many mansions and the many servants."

Jean nodded. "Mrs. M'Cosh often says, 'There's mony a lang gant in a
cairriage,' and I dare say it's true. I don't want to be ungrateful,
Pamela. I think it's about the worst sin one can commit--ingratitude.
And I don't want to be stuffy, either, but I think I was meant for small
ways."

"Poor Penny-plain! Never mind. I'm not going to preach any more. You
shall do just as you please with your life. I was remembering, Jean,
your desire to go to the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford in April. Why
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