O. Douglas

“ Bella admitted. "An' I must say she disna gie much trouble—but it's an idle life for ony wumman. I canna see why Miss Reston, wi' a' her faculties aboot her, needs you hingin' round her. Mercy me, what's to hinder her pu'in ribbons through her ain underclothes, if ribbons are necessary, which they're not. There's Mrs. Muir next door, wi' six bairns, an' a' the wark o' the hoose to dae an' washin's forbye, an' here's Miss Reston never liftin' a finger except to pu' silk threads through a bit stuff. That's what makes folk Socialists." ”

“ Mawson nodded wisely. "There's plenty Mrs. Duff-Whalleys about; you be thankful you've only one in the place. Priorsford is a very charitable place, I think. The poor people here don't know they're born after London, and the clergy seem very active too."
"Oh, they are that. I daur say they're as guid as is gaun. Mr. Morrison is a fine man if marriage disna ruin him."
"Oh, surely not!"
"There's no sayin'," said Bella gloomily. "She's young and flighty, but there's wan thing, she has no money. ”

“ I kent a minister—he was a kinda cousin o' ma father's—an' he mairret a heiress and they had late denner. I tell ye that late denner was the ruin o' that man. It fair got between him an' his jidgment. He couldna veesit his folk at a wise-like hour in the evening because he was gaun to hev his denner, and he couldna get oot late because his leddy-wife wanted him to be at hame efter denner. There's mony a thing to cause a minister to stumble, for they're juist human beings after a', but his rich mairrage was John Allison's undoing."
"Marriage," sighed Mawson, "is a great risk. ”