"Gavin, I really dinna care for dripping."

"Then I'll give up my classes, and we can have butter."

"I assure you I'm no hungry. It's different wi' a growing laddie."

"I'm not a growing laddie," Gavin would say, bitterly; "but,
mother, I warn you that not another bite passes my throat till I
see you eating too."

So Margaret had to take her seat at the table, and when she said
"I can eat no more," Gavin retorted sternly, "Nor will I, for fine
I see through you."

These two were as one far more than most married people, and, just
as Gavin in his childhood reflected his mother, she now reflected
him. The people for whom she sewed thought it was contact with
them that had rubbed the broad Scotch from her tongue, but she Was
only keeping pace with Gavin. When she was excited the Harvie
words came back to her, as they come back to me. I have taught the
English language all my life, and I try to write it, but
everything I say in this book I first think to myself in the
Doric. This, too, I notice, that in talking to myself I am broader
than when gossiping with the farmers of the glen, who send their
children to me to learn English, and then jeer at them if they say
"old lights" instead of "auld lichts."

To Margaret it was happiness to sit through the long evenings
sewing, and look over her work at Gavin as he read or wrote or
recited to himself the learning of the schools. But she coughed