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.
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