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PRIMROSES.
"If I go on, I go alone," Barebone had once said to Dormer Colville.

The words, spoken in the heat of a quarrel, stuck in the memory of both, as such are wont to do.

Perhaps, in moments of anger or disillusionment--when we find that neither self nor friend is what we thought--the heart tears itself away from the grip of the cooler, calmer brain and speaks untrammelled.

And such speeches are apt to linger in the mind long after the most brilliant jeu d'esprit has been forgotten.
What occupies the thoughts of the old man, sitting out the grey remainder of the day, over the embers of a hearth which he will only quit when he quits the world?
Does he remember the brilliant sallies of wit, the greatest triumphs of the noblest minds with which he has consorted; or does his memory cling to some scene--simple, pastoral, without incident--which passed before his eyes at a moment when his heart was sore or glad?
When his mind is resting from its labours and the sound of the grinding is low, he will scarce remember the neat saying or the lofty thought clothed in perfect language; but he will never forget a hasty word spoken in an unguarded moment by one who was not clever at all, nor even possessed the worldly wisdom to shield the heart behind the buckler of the brain.
"You will find things changed," Colville had said, as they walked across the marsh from Farlingford, toward the Ipswich road.