"If you should make a match of it, Tom being gone. Poor old Tom! He and I were such cronies. I've always had an idea that neither you nor the other fellow quite understood that low fever of his. You did your best, no doubt; but I think you ought to have pulled him through somehow. However, that's not a pleasant subject to talk of just now; so I'll drop it, and wish you joy, Phil. It'll be rather a good match for you, I fancy," added George, contemplating his brother with a nervous twitching of his lips, which suggested that his mouth watered as he thought of Philip's good fortune. "It's a very nice thing you drop into, old fellow, isn't it?" he asked presently, seeing that his brother was rather disinclined to discuss the subject. "You know the state of my affairs well enough to be sure that I couldn't afford to marry a poor woman," answered Philip. "And that it has been for a long time a vital necessity with you to marry a rich one," interjected his brother. "Georgy will have a few hundreds, and----" "A few thousands, you mean, Phil," cried Sheldon the younger with agreeable briskness; "shall I tot it up for you?" He was always eager to "tot" things up, and would scarcely have shrunk from setting down the stars of heaven in trim double columns of figures, had it seemed to his profit to do so. "Let us put it in figures, Phil," he said, getting his finger-tips in order for the fray. "There's the money for Hyley Farm--twelve thousand three hundred and fifty, I had it from poor Tom's own lips. Then there's that little property on Sheepfield Common--say seven-fifty, eh?--well, say seven hundred, if you like to leave a margin; and then there are the insurances--three thou' in the Alliance, fifteen hundred in the Phoenix, five hundred in the Suffolk Friendly; the total of which, my dear boy, is eighteen thousand five hundred pounds; and a very nice thing for you to drop into, just as affairs were looking about as black as they could look." "Yes," answered Mr. Sheldon the elder, who appeared by no means to relish this "totting-up" of his future wife's fortune; "I have no doubt I ought to consider myself a very lucky man." "So Barlingford folks will say when they hear of the business. And now I hope you're not going to forget your promise to me." "What promise?" "That if you ever did get a stroke of luck, I should have a share of it--eh, Phil?" Mr. Sheldon caressed his chin, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. "If my wife lets me have the handling of any of her money, you may depend upon it I'll do what I can for you," he said, after a pause.