To a young man whose salary is only two hundred a year, the unexpected accession to two thousand pounds, hard cash, seems like a great fortune. Not that Austin Clay cared so very much for a 'great fortune' in itself; but he certainly did hope to achieve a competency, and to this end he made the best use of the talents bestowed upon him. He was not ambitious to die 'worth a million;' he had the rare good sense to know that excess of means cannot bring excess of happiness. The richest man on earth cannot eat two dinners a day, or wear two coats at a time, or sit two thoroughbred horses at once, or sleep on two beds. To some, riches are a source of continual trouble. Unless rightly used, they cannot draw a man to heaven, or help him on his road thither. Austin Clay's ambition lay in becoming a powerful man of business; such as were the Messrs. Hunter. He would like to have men under him, of whom he should be the master; not to control them with an iron hand, to grind them to the dust, to hold them at a haughty distance, as if they were of one species of humanity and he of another. No; he would hold intact their relative positions of master and servant--none more strictly than he; but he would be their considerate friend, their firm advocate, regardful ever of their interests as he was of his own. He would like to have capital sufficient for all necessary business operations, that he might fulfil every obligation justly and honourably: so far, money would be welcome to Austin. Very welcome did the two thousand pounds sound in his ears, for they might be the stepping-stone to this. Not to the 'great fortune' talked of by Mr. Knapley, who avowed freely his respect for millionaires: he did not care for that. They might also be a stepping-stone to something else--the very thought of which caused his face to glow and his veins to tingle--the winning of Florence Hunter. That he would win her, Austin fully believed now. On the day previous to the funeral, in walking through the streets of Ketterford, Austin found himself suddenly seized by the shoulder. A window had been thrown open, and a fair arm (to speak with the gallantry due to the sex in general, rather than to that one arm in particular) was pushed out and laid upon him. His captor was Miss Gwinn. 'Come in,' she briefly said. Austin would have been better pleased to avoid her, but as she had thus summarily caught him, there was no help for it: to enter into a battle of contention with _her_ might be productive of neither honour nor profit. He entered her sitting-room, and she motioned him to a chair. 'So you did not intend to call upon me during your stay in Ketterford, Austin Clay?' 'The melancholy occasion on which I am here precludes much visiting,' was his guarded reply. 'And my sojourn will be a short one.' 'Don't be a hypocrite, young man, and use those unmeaning words. "Melancholy occasion!" What did you care for Mrs. Thornimett, that her death should make you "melancholy?"'