'Well—it may seem selfish, dear Deb.'
'Ah—advice is a commodity which every possessor deems most valuable, and yet hastens to get rid of.'
Hawkey eyed her anxiously, for her irritation and animosity, when her delicate health and disease of the heart were referred to, always predominated over every other feeling, but she waived them for the time and returned to the first subject.
'So that was all your success with Maude?'
'Not much, certainly,' he replied, with a scowl at vacancy.
'Unfortunate!'
'Rather!'
'As the provision left by her father is a most ample one for her.'
'Not so ample as all Earlshaugh, however,' thought he, refilling his briar-root in silence.
'You must persevere. It has been truly said that "the days of Jacob are over, that men don't understand waiting now, and it is always as well to catch your fish when you can."'