“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 not motor there?  It is a lovely run.  I meant to take you myself, but I expect you would enjoy it much better if you went with the boys.  It would be great fun for you all, and take you away from your philanthropic efforts and let you see round everything clearly.”

Jean’s eyes lit with interest, and Pamela, seeing the light in them, went on: 

“Everybody should make a pilgrimage in spring:  it’s the correct thing to do.  Imagine starting on an April morning, through new roads, among singing birds and cowslips and green new leaves, and stopping at little inns for the night—­lovely, Jean.”

Jean gave a great sigh.

“Lovely,” she echoed.  Lovely, indeed, to be away from housekeeping and poor people and known paths for a little, and into leafy Warwick lanes and the rich English country which she had never seen.

“And then,” Pamela went on, “you would come back appreciating Priorsford more than you have ever done.  You would come back to Tweed and Peel Tower and the Hopetoun Woods with a new understanding.  There’s nothing so makes you appreciate your home as leaving it....  Bother!  That’s the bell.  Visitors!”