As they walked homewards, Donald, after a long silence, burst out laughing, exclaiming, “Weel, I expected to see a number of bairns in pinafores, but eh! she’s a braw lassie.”
“She is the sweetest young creature I have ever had the happiness of meeting,” said David.
“But I am talking of the elder sister,” exclaimed Donald.
“And I speak of the younger,” observed David. “But they are both very nice girls—there is no doubt as to that—no nonsense about them—so full of spirits and fun, and yet so lady-like and quite, and I heard Emily’s voice, when joining in the prayer, it was so true and earnest.”
“I was nearest Mary, and was struck by the genuine tone of her’s,” observed Donald.
“Do you know, David, that I had made up my mind to follow the example of Mr Skinner, and to live a bachelor for ten years to come at least, and then, perhaps, to go back to the old country to look out for a wife. But eh! that looking out for a wife must be unsatisfactory work at best. How can a man possibly discover the real character and disposition of a lady when the object he has in view is suspected, if not well known.”
“We may be sure we shall be guided aright if we seek guidance in that as in all other matters,” answered David. “But I cannot help hoping that neither you nor I need be compelled to make the expedition you suggest. I have sought guidance, and I am sure that in God’s good time we shall be directed aright.”
Day after day, when their work was over, they had some cogent reason for calling at their friend’s house; and when Margaret next met them, Donald confessed that if he ever could venture to marry he should be thankful to make Mary Ramsden his wife, while David made the same acknowledgment with regard to her younger sister.
Happily, in a prosperous country like Canada, to steady and industrious men like the young Morrisons, the impediments were not insuperable, nor, indeed, did they take long to overcome.
Faithful Janet was overjoyed when she heard that the lassies she so much admired had promised to become the wives of her twa bairns, with a full approval of their mother and uncle. As they agreed that their old house might not always be sufficiently large to hold them both, they moved further off to the west, where they were enabled to purchase, by the sale of their already well cultivated farm, two good sized allotments of land, on each of which they reared a comfortable log-house, where, shortly afterwards, they and their brides took up their abode.