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."
