to my life, and cause the united life to bud and blossom
into the May of the heart."

"And November and December would come to that year likewise."

"Yes, they will; but they will tread hard upon the real new-year, the
veritable new year, that will

"Ring out the false, ring in the true"

of this hoary world. Will you travel to it with me, Joanna? Shall we
strive and pray, and help each other to reach it together? Shall we
begin it even here? Your father will bestow you solemnly and gladly; my
mother will accept you with a blessing."

Joanna said, "Yes; God bless us, Harry," reverently; and, reverently,
God blessed them.

Harry was energetic, and Joanna was prudent, and old Mrs. Jardine was
proud of the spirit with which they saved the swamped estate of
Whitethorn even from Mr. Crawfurd's bond; and having helped themselves,
they helped others, then and ever afterwards.

Polly Musgrave applied to them in time. Polly had written on Joanna
Crawfurd's marriage a jeering, jibing letter. "So you have gone and done
as I prophesied, after all your wrath on the moor, and preciseness at
Hurlton. But, first, you were as silly as possible, and wanted to revive
the Middle Ages, which was quite in Don Quixote's tone; you to pine and
die, and he to shoot himself (as violent deaths are hereditary), or
addict himself to loose living and destruction. Then, when he loses his
money, and in common sense you may both think better of it, shake hands
and go your several ways; you make all up, post haste, and come together
with a flourish of trumpets, and poverty _will_ come in at the door, and
love fly out at the window. Fie! I am ashamed of you, after all!"

But Polly wrote in a different strain a year or two later:--"DEAR
COUSIN JOANNA,--I am not so healthy and heartless as I used to be,
and I have been teased with a desire to come to Whitethorn, and perhaps
profit by your carriage in this world, as I never dreamt of once upon a
time. But I will say this for myself, I only wrote and crowed over you
when you were quite able to afford it. I was very glad of your
happiness, child (as our grandmother wrote, and one of our grandmothers
was the same person! think of that, Harry Jardine!). Is Harry Jardine as
promising as he used to be before you took him in hand; or is the
promise fulfilled in an upright, generous, gladsome (and because of that
last word you would insist on adding godly) man? He was a man of whom to
make a spoon or sp