But if Jack turns out a genius, which please God we may live to see and be proud of, he'll make plenty of money, and he must live with Jem when we're gone, and let Jem manage it for him, for clever people are never any good at taking care of what they get.

And when their families get too big for the old house, love, Jack must build, as he'll be well able to afford to do, and Jem must let him have the land.

The Ladycroft would be as good as anywhere, and a pretty name for the house.

It would be a good thing to have some one at that end of the property too, and then the boys would always be together." Poor dear mother! The kernel of her speech lay in the end of it--"The boys would always be together." I am sure in her tender heart she blessed my bookish genius, which was to make wealth as well as fame, and so keep me "about the place," and the home birds for ever in the nest.
I knew nothing of it then, of course; but at this time she used to turn my father's footsteps towards the Ladycroft every Sunday, between the services, and never wearied of planning my house.
She was standing one day, her smooth brow knitted in perplexity, before the big pink thorn, and had stood so long absorbed in this brown study, that my father said, with a sly smile, "Well, love, and where are you now ?" "In the dairy, my dear," she answered quite gravely.

"The window is to the north of course, and I'm afraid the thorn must come down." My father laughed heartily.