"Then may I choose it?" said Lorne. "And will you wear it?"
"I suppose you may. Why are you--why do you--Oh, Lorne,
stand still!"
"I'll give you, you sweet girl, my whole heart!" he said
in the vague tender knowledge that he offered her a
garden, where she had but to walk, and smile, to bring
about her unimaginable blooms.
CHAPTER XIII
They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May
evening, Mr and Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the
Murchison Place in the town's mouth now, and that was
only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the Plummers.
It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big
horse chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring
dusk for them, as it had done faithfully for thirty years.
John was no longer in his shirt-sleeves; the growing
authority of his family had long prescribed a black alpaca
coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old
deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as
considerately as he held its original, which lasted him
fifteen years. A great deal of John Murchison's character
was there, in the way he held his pipe, his gentleness
and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet
strength of his nature. He smoked and read the paper the
unfailing double solace of his evenings. I should have
said that it was Mrs Murchison who talked.
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