A few weeks passed by, during which Alick, instead of going about the place and seeing how his estate was managed, shut himself up with Flegel, the carpenter, and busied himself in making a machine from the model he had formerly invented, that would act as harrow and clod-breaker at one and the same time. He wanted to complete it as soon as possible, for the benefit of himself, and the world at large. All the letters and accounts which ought to have been attended to regularly, and which form a portion of the necessary daily work of any one who has a large estate to manage, were pushed aside as matters of small moment. When Alick came home to dinner or supper he looked as grave and important as if he had been busy at the farm all day, and wished his wife to see how very necessary his presence was for the proper conduct of affairs. And who is so credulous as a young wife? Some one may say: a girl during her engagement. But that is a mistake, for her position is not so assured. She is always trying to know and understand her future husband better. But when once a woman thinks she knows a man's character, and has given him her hand, she follows him blindly until the bandage is torn rudely from her eyes. Then she strives against the truth, refuses to credit what she sees, and thinks it her duty to disbelieve the testimony of her own eyes. They were not wicked actions that he hid from her; they were only follies which he firmly believed would improve his affairs. But it was a pity that he did not know what he was doing, and that she did not see it. It never occurred to her that he could act differently with regard to his share of the duties of the estate, from what she did in her own domain of kitchen, larder and dairy, where she went about daily, looking carefully into everything, and learning all that she could, so as to be able to take the charge of everything into her own hands. Nothing lasts more than a certain time, and as old Kopk, the shepherd, said: Puppies have their eyes opened on the ninth day.