Three generations

THE VIEW FROM THE SUN TAVERN 89
town of Cupar. A group of professional men who had
leisure, and seemed to have nothing better to do, one
summer afternoon withdrew into the Sun Tavern.
The window of the tavern, in which they were
drinking a moderate refreshment for the benefit of the
house, looked out on a garden. The back of the
house commanded, not only the Sun Tavern's garden,
with its apple-trees and gooseberry-bushes, its breaks
of peas and beans, its beds of onions and carrots,
and its narrow flower-borders, but also the adjoining
garden, belonging to one of the gentlemen present.
The view included the dwelling-house, to which the
last-mentioned garden belonged, some of whose win-
dows, with their cross-lights, betrayed the secrets of old-
fashioned housekeeping. Through one of the windows
of a room set aside as a small dairy, described in the
vernacular as " the milkhouse," which to-day would
probably be termed the " creamery," could be seen
shelves with milk, eggs, butter, etc.
" Why, there is my mother going herself to skim the
basin with the thickest cream for her tea 1" called the
owner of the house, directing the company's attention
to the fact. And at that moment the figure of a digni-
fied old lady, in her widow's tall cap and house-
spencer, wearing a pair of " muffles" (gloves with the
tips of the fingers cut off), and carrying a china cream-
jug in one hand and a silver spoon in the other, was
distinctly seen slowly coming on the scene, proceeding
to put down her jug, and preparing to skim the basin
on the window-shelf.
It was commonly recognized that the speaker held
his mother in high respect. Mother and son were
well-to-do and well-born, as well as fairly well off,
living on their private means rather than on his