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 favoured, couldn't you put up with the high cheek-bones, the rather wide mouth, and reddish hair?"

"I'll never try, I tell you. Grace at least I will have, and youth and symmetry—yes, and what I call beauty."

"And poverty, and a nursery full of bairns you can neither clothe nor feed, and very soon an anxious faded mother—and then bankruptcy, discredit—a life-long struggle."

"Let me alone, Yorke."

"If you are romantic, Robert, and especially if you are already in love, it is of no use talking."

"I am not romantic. I am stript of romance as bare as the white tenters in that field are of cloth."

"Always use such figures of speech, lad; I can understand them: and there is no love-affair to disturb your judgment?"

"I thought I had said enough on that subject before. Love for me? Stuff!"

"Well, then; if you are sound both in heart and head, there is no reason why you should not profit by a good chance if it offers: therefore, wait and see."

"You are quite oracular, Yorke."

"I think I am a bit i' that line. I promise ye naught and I advise ye naught; but I bid ye keep your heart up, and be guided by circumstances."

"My namesake—the physician's almanack could not speak more guardedly."