"My folk lie there, Mary; wad ye like to lie there?"
Mary took the grave hint, says the Doctor, and became his wife, but does not yet lie there.
Much in the same vein is an anecdote that was told me in an Edinburgh house one day at dessert:
Jamie and Janet have long loved each other, but neither has spoken word to the other of this flame.
At last Donald one day makes up his mind to break the ice.
"Janet," he says, "it must be verra sad to lie on your death bed and hae no ane to houd your han' in your last moments?"
"That is what I often say to mysel, Jamie. It must be a pleasant thing to feel that a frien's han' is there to close your ee when a' is ower."
"Ay, ay, Janet; and that is what mak's me sometimes think o' marriage. After all, we war na made to live alone."
"For my pairt, I am no thinkin' o' matrimony. But still, the thoucht of livin' wi' a mon that I could care for is no disagreeable to me," says Janet. "Unfortunately, I have not come across him yet."
"I believe I hae met wi' the woman I loe," responds Jamie; "but I dinna ken whether she lo'es me."