e balancing action of some instinctive sense of
justice) he almost always ended by adopting them, whether they were wise
or foolish. He came at last to listen very tolerantly when she dilated
on my future greatness.

"And if he isn't quite so good a farmer as Jem, it's not as if he were
the eldest, you know, my dear. I'm sure we've much to be thankful for
that dear Jem takes after you as he does. But if Jack turns out a
genius, which please God we may live to see and be proud of, he'll make
plenty of money, and he must live with Jem when we're gone, and let Jem
manage it for him, for clever people are never any good at taking care
of what they get. And when their families get too big for the old house,
love, Jack must build, as he'll be well able to afford to do, and Jem
must let him have the land. The Ladycroft would be as good as anywhere,
and a pretty name for the house. It would be a good thing to have some
one at that end of the property too, and then the boys would always be
together."

Poor dear mother! The kernel of her speech lay in the end of it--"The
boys would always be together." I am sure in her tender heart she
blessed my bookish genius, which was to make wealth as well as fame, and
so keep me "about the place," and the home birds for ever in the nest.

I knew nothing of it then, of course; but at this time she used to turn
my father's footsteps towards the Ladycroft every Sunday, between the
services, and never wearied of planning my house.

She was standing one day, her smooth brow knitted in perplexity, before
the big pink thorn, and had stood so long absorbed in this brown study,
that my father said, with a sly smile,

"Well, love, and where are you now?"

"In the dairy, my dear," she answered quite gravely. "The window is to
the north of course, and I'm afraid the thorn must come down."

My father laughed heartily. He had some sense of humour, but my mother
had none. She was one of the sweetest-tempered women that ever lived,
and never dreamed that any one was laughing at her. I have heard my
father say she lay awake that night, and when he asked her why she could
not sleep he found she was fretting about the pink thorn.

"It looked so pretty to-day, my dear; and thorns are so bad to move!"

My father knew her too well to hope to console her by joking about it.
He said gravely: "There's plenty of time yet, love. The boys are only
just in trousers; and we may think of some way to spare it bef