"I do wonder what brings her to Priorsford! I rather think that having
been all her life so very 'twopence coloured' she wants the 'penny
plain' for a change. Perhaps that is why she likes The Rigs and us.
There is no mistake about our 'penny-plainness'--it jumps to the eye!

"I am just afraid she won't stay very long. There are so many pretty
little houses in Priorsford, and so many kind and forthcoming
landladies, it was bad luck that she should choose Hillview and Bella
Bathgate. Bella is almost like a stage-caricature of a Scotswoman, so
dour she is and uncompromising and she positively glories in the drab
ugliness of her rooms. Ugliness means to Bella respectability; any
attempt at adornment is 'daft-like.'

"Pamela (she has asked me to call her that) trembles before her, and
that makes Bella worse. She wants someone to stand up to her, to laugh
at her grimness; she simply thinks when Pamela is charming to her that
she is a poor creature.

"She is charming to everyone, this lodger of Bella's. Jock and Mhor and
Mrs. M'Cosh are all at her feet. She brings us books and papers and
chocolates and fruit, and makes us feel we are conferring the favour by
accepting them. She is a real charmer, for when she speaks to you she
makes you feel that no one matters to her but just you yourself.
And she is simple (or at least appears to be); she hasn't that
Now-I-am-going-to-be-charming manner that is so difficult to bear. It is
such fun talking to her, for she is very--pliable I think is the word I
want. Accustomed to converse with people who constantly pull one up
short with an 'Ah, now I don't agree,' or 'There, I think you are quite
wrong,' it is wonderfully soothing to discuss things with someone who
has the air of being convinced by one's arguments. It is weak, I know,