“That has nothing to do with it,” said Miss Jean, promptly. “The more reason that Marjory should; there’s enough of us poor dry trees, with nothing to leave behind. If you have any respect for the past generation, of which I’m the last representative, Charlie Heriot, you’ll do what I say. Marry her well; she’s worthy the trouble. She’ll make such a man’s wife as few men deserve, that’s my opinion. Mind, I’m not saying but what she might be mended; but marry her, and marry her well, Charlie, or you’ll get nothing from me.” “Perhaps you would tell me how I’m to do it?” said Mr. Charles, with sarcastic seriousness. “If you cannot find that out for yourself, you’ll never do it by my teaching,” said Miss Jean. “Well I know ye have but little sense, you useless men; but ye know other men, if you do nothing else. If it was a wife, now, that I wanted for a likely lad, do ye think I could not lay my hand on one? aye, and bring it to pass, too, if there was not something sore against me. Keep your eyes open, and when ye see a man that’s worth the trouble, take him to your house--since ye are to have a house; and meddle no more, Charlie Heriot, after ye have done that; meddle no more. The first step is in your power; but the rest they must do themselves, or it will never be done. That’s my advice. Friends can do a great deal, but there’s a leemit which they must never pass. Once let May see what you have in your head, and there’s an end of it all. Without judgment, ye’ll never succeed in that, nor, indeed, in anything else, as ye might have learned from the family letters ye are so fond of. But the Heriots have never minded their daughters; they have left the poor things to themselves. There’s me, for example; not that I’m regretting my lot. A man would have been a terrible trouble to me; I could not have been fashed with a creature aye on my hands. But Marjory’s young enough to accustom herself to her fate, whatever that may be.” “I hope so,” said Mr. Charles, with some impatience; “but if you think that I am going to take home every man about the Links to see whether our May is good enough for him--” “That’s just like one of your interpretations,” said Miss Jean, with quiet scorn. “‘Any man that’s worth the trouble,’ said I; ‘every man upon the Links,’ says he; it’s just what a woman has to expect. And Marjory may have settled for herself, so far as I know. There was that English lad, that you and poor Thomas, like two wise men, had so much about the house--” “Fanshawe? I don’t think he has a penny,” said Mr. Charles. “Most likely no, or ye would not have taken such pains to throw him in the girrl’s way. He was not ill-looking, and he had a taking manner, and when the heart’s soft it’s easy to make an impression; she has a kind of absent look at times. And there’s Johnnie Hepburn, not a great match, but well off, that would give his two e’en if she would but look at him--”