I have long seen that your views were extended far
beyond so humble a station as this place affords promise of. It is
natural they should do so, considering that the circumstances of your
birth seemed connected with riches and with rank. Go, then, seek that
riches and rank. It is possible your mind may be changed in the pursuit,
and if so, think no more about Menie Gray. But if it should be
otherwise, we may meet again, and do not believe for a moment that there
can be a change in Menie Gray's feelings towards you."
At this interview, much more was said than it is necessary to repeat,
much more thought than was actually said. Nurse Jamieson, in whose
chamber it took place, folded her _bairns_, as she called them, in her
arms, and declared that Heaven had made them for each other, and that
she would not ask of Heaven to live beyond the day when she should see
them bridegroom and bride.
At length it became necessary that the parting scene should end; and
Richard Middlemas, mounting a horse which he had hired for the journey,
set off for Edinburgh, to which metropolis he had already forwarded his
heavy baggage. Upon the road the idea more than once occurred to him,
that even, yet he had better return to Middlemas, and secure his
happiness by uniting himself at once to Menie Gray, and to humble
competence. But from the moment that he rejoined his friend Hillary at
their appointed place of rendezvous, he became ashamed even to hint at
any change of purpose; and his late excited feelings were forgotten,
unless in so far as they confirmed his resolution, that as soon as he
had attained a certain portion of wealth and consequence, he would haste
to share them with Menie Gray.
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