as my mother and I maintain together."

"Much duller, I should think."

"No; for before a certain time he was not sensible of its deficiency; he
had no definite wishes or hopes for an increase to their circle, a
re-modelling of their housekeeping. My mother was distantly related to
him; she came on a visit to my grand-uncle with an elderly lady, who was
also a connexion; she was a lively young girl then. My father often told
her afterwards to what an incalculable degree her presence brightened
the old house and the two forlorn gentlemen; it would have been utter
darkness if she had left them again to their old hazy sunlessness; so my
father took the desperate step of leading her to the thorn walk. It was
the month of May then, and it was covered with blossoms, sending a white
shower on their bent heads from a whole line of trysting trees; but,
when I think of it, March, which is lightly esteemed, is preferable to
May, for March has all the promise of the year in prospect; and see, it
has cloth of gold and silver to step upon, in the shape of the bright,
commonplace, unjustly overlooked crocuses."

"You have been reading the seedsman's tallies, Mr. Jardine."

"Never mind; you agree with me?"

"The world and the poets choose May. And you begin to be eccentric and
choose March."

"My father conducted my mother here; she has told me the circumstances a
hundred times, though she is a quiet woman; and she wore such a cloth
gown as you wear to-day."

"Mr. Jardine, you are talking nonsense; this is a new stuff, I assure
you it has not been half-a-dozen months out of the looms; and do you
suppose, sir, that I shall wear this dress in the month of May?"

"That comes of confiding those details to men. I always thought it was a
gown like this one; and he asked her to abide at Whitethorn, and crown
his lairdship and gladden and sweeten his entire future career; and he
succeeded at last in winning her consent. And this is the thorn walk,
Joanna, and I am free to re-enact the old passage in two lives, and
plead with you not to desert Whitethorn if we are to retain it. I am
poorer by a few thousands since I first made the same prayer to you; but
your father puts no weight on the difference, or, in his rare
generosity, lets it tell in my favour; and I don't think we need break
our hearts about our little loss, if we look to our great gain. Here I
beg you, as the humblest and most sincere of your petitioners, to put
your life in