“Is not that what I have just said? and naturally she influences you. I think it is a pity, you know, because women do not know what is best either for their husbands or themselves; but it is very greatly to your credit. I dare say, if I had married differently, I should feel like you. After looking at Mrs. Dudley, I think what a pity it is to see her wasting her life at Berrie Down. By Jove! if I had a wife like her, it would be worth a thousand a year to me. Don’t she set off the head of a man’s table! Wouldn’t she be the one to entertain the great people I want to make useful! And your sisters, Dudley. It’s a sin to see them buried here—girls who might marry well to-morrow. Mrs. Ormson and I often talk it over; but we have agreed it is of no use fretting about the business, which is just one of those matters we were not sent into the world to right.” In which last portion of his sentence, had Mr. Black omitted the “not,” he would much more truthfully have stated his own and Mrs. Ormson’s opinions. At all events, if the pair had not sufficient reliance on Providence to believe they were sent to right the matter, they thought they ought to have been, and were not slow about asserting their conviction, which comes to nearly the same thing. “Supposing your scheme turned out well, how soon should you expect to make money by it?” inquired Arthur, apparently a little irrelevantly. “How soon? Oh! within a twelvemonth. I shall have my shares, of course—paid-up shares, mind you—and I shall have my profit on the sale of the mills and plant. I don’t take all that trouble and risk for nothing; and then there will be various pickings. Altogether, to begin with, I shall not clear less than ten thousand pounds, and then my shares ought to be worth twenty thousand pounds more, at least.” “And how much of that would you give to a person who saw you through your present difficulty?” asked Arthur, desperately. “If _you_ saw me through, one-half,” was the quick reply. “Look here, Dudley,” went on the promoter, “if you are thinking of joining me, make up your mind at once, and let us talk the matter over. This is Saturday. I must do something in it on Monday. Don’t beat about the bush, man. If you want information, I will give it to you; if you wish to make a push for fortune, don’t be backward about saying so; if you fancy this venture might suit you, inquire into it fully. If you don’t like it after inquiring, why, there is no harm done. I could not ask you to go into it as I might a commercial man—being a relation and so forth naturally ties my tongue—only I will say this much, it is the best thing I have ever had to do with, and there is no reason I can see why you should not make your fortune out of it too. Keep the money in the family, eh, Squire?” and Mr. Black looked sharply at Arthur from under his eyelids—looked round at him without moving his head to see how his companion was taking it.