Words about Babbie leaped to his mouth, but with an effort he restrained them.  He must not tell his mother of her until Babbie of her free will had told him all there was to tell.

“I have been a selfish woman, Gavin.”

“You selfish, mother!” Gavin said, smiling.  “Tell me when you did not think of others before yourself?”

“Always, Gavin.  Has it not been selfishness to hope that you would never want to bring another mistress to the manse?  Do you remember how angry you used to be in Glasgow when I said that you would marry some day?”

“I remember,” Gavin said, sadly.

“Yes; you used to say, ’Don’t speak of such a thing, mother, for the horrid thought of it is enough to drive all the Hebrew out of my head.’  Was not that lightning just now?”

“I did not see it.  What a memory you have, mother, for all the boyish things I said.”

“I can’t deny,” Margaret admitted with a sigh, “that I liked to hear you speak in that way, though I knew you would go back on your word.  You see, you have changed already.”

“How, mother?” asked Gavin, surprised.

“You said just now that those were boyish speeches.  Gavin, I can’t understand the mothers who are glad to see their sons married; though I had a dozen I believe it would be a wrench to lose one of them.  It would be different with daughters.  You are laughing, Gavin!”

“Yes, at your reference to daughters.  Would you not have preferred me to be a girl?”

“’Deed I would not,” answered Margaret, with tremendous conviction.  “Gavin, every woman on earth, be she rich or poor, good or bad, offers up one prayer about her firstborn, and that is, ‘May he be a boy!’”

“I think you are wrong, mother.  The banker’s wife told me that there is nothing for which she thanks the Lord so much as that all her children are girls.”

“May she be forgiven for that, Gavin!” exclaimed Margaret; “though she maybe did right to put the best face on her humiliation.  No, no, there are many kinds of women in the world, but there never was one yet that didn’t want to begin with a laddie.  You can speculate about a boy so much more than about a girl.  Gavin, what is it a woman thinks about the day her son is born? yes, and the day before too?  She is picturing him a grown man, and a slip of a lassie taking him from her.  Ay, that is where the lassies have their revenge on the mothers.  I remember as if it were this morning a Harvie fishwife patting your head and asking who was your sweetheart, and I could never thole the woman again.  We were at the door of the cottage, and I mind I gripped you up in my arms.  You had on a tartan frock with a sash and diamond socks.  When I look back, Gavin, it seems to me that you have shot up from that frock to manhood in a single hour.”

“There are not many mothers like you,” Gavin said, laying his hand fondly on Margaret’s shoulder.

“There are many better mothers, but few such sons.  It is easily seen why God could not afford me another.  Gavin, I am sure that was lightning.”