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GUY MANNERING.
131

A few days after the departure of the gypsy tribe, Mr Bertram asked his lady one morning at breakfast, whether this was not little Harry's birth-day?

"Five years old exactly, this blessed day," answered the lady; "so we may look into the English gentleman's paper."

Mr Bertram liked to show his authority in trifles. "No, my dear, not till to-morrow. The last time I was at quarter sessions the sheriff told us, that dies—that dies inceptus—in short, you don't understand Latin, but it means that a term day is not begun till it's ended."

"That sounds like nonsense, my dear."

"May be so, my dear; but it may be very good law for all that. I am sure, speaking of term days, I wish, as Frank Kennedy says, that Whitsunday would kill Martinmas, and be hanged for the murder—for there I have got a letter about that interest of Jenny Cairns's, and deil a tenant's been at the Place yet wi' a boddle of rent,—nor will not till Can-