clothes-basket which has just arrived with the mangling. Now there
is delicious linen for my mother to finger; there was always
rapture on her face when the clothes-basket came in; it never
failed to make her once more the active genius of the house. I may
leave her now with her sheets and collars and napkins and fronts.
Indeed, she probably orders me to go. A son is all very well, but
suppose he were to tread on that counterpane!

My sister is but and I am ben - I mean she is in the east end and I
am in the west - tuts, tuts! let us get at the English of this by
striving: she is in the kitchen and I am at my desk in the parlour.
I hope I may not be disturbed, for to-night I must make my hero say
'Darling,' and it needs both privacy and concentration. In a word,
let me admit (though I should like to beat about the bush) that I
have sat down to a love-chapter. Too long has it been avoided,
Albert has called Marion 'dear' only as yet (between you and me
these are not their real names), but though the public will
probably read the word without blinking, it went off in my hands
with a bang. They tell me - the Sassenach tell me - that in time I
shall be able without a blush to make Albert say 'darling,' and
even gather her up in his arms, but I begin to doubt it; the moment
sees me as shy as ever; I still find it advisable to lock the door,
and then - no witness save the dog - I 'do' it dourly with my teeth
clenched, while the dog retreats into the far corner and moans.
The bolder Englishman (I am told) will write a love-chapter and
then go out, quite coolly, to dinner, but such goings on are
contrary to the Scotch nature; even the great novelists dared not.
Conceive Mr. Stevenson left alone with a hero, a heroine, and a
proposal impending (he does not know where to look). Sir Walter in
the same circumstances gets out of the room by making his love-