Arthur had never been contented, and she was quite aware that the increase to his income could not make him so. She understood her husband’s peculiarities sufficiently by this time to know that his wants would only grow with what they fed on. If Mr. Black’s cry were always more capital, Arthur’s had always been a larger revenue. Looking back over her married life with eyes from which the glamour of early love was now completely cleared away, Heather saw that money matters might have been better with them for years past, had Arthur only been energetic, and strong, and determined, like other men—had he finished his draining instead of leaving it half completed—had he turned up his land and laid out money by degrees, as he could spare it, on that which never proves ungrateful for capital wisely expended, for care judiciously bestowed. She could not be blind to the fact that, as a rule, they had bought stock dear and sold it cheap—that what Alick had often said, “Arthur is neither master nor man: neither master to give orders and see them carried out, nor man to obey orders if given by anybody else,” was true. There was no fairy mist hanging before her mental vision now. Like Mr. Stewart, she feared the person who could not make money at Berrie Down, plainly and economically as they had lived for years, would not be likely to make or to keep much money elsewhere. Certainly the thousand a year was something tangible—a peg on which to hang her faith, had any faith been left; but, like most women who have passed all the most important years of their lives in the country, Heather entertained a perfect horror of the expenses of living in town. She did not believe one sentence of what Mr. Black said about an income going as far there as in the country. She knew, no one better, how very small a money outlay had sufficed to maintain the family at Berrie Down comfortably and respectably. Those only who have eaten of the fat of their own lands, and beheld the wheat growing which is afterwards to be ground into flour—who have scarcely missed from amongst the rough abundance of all farm produce, the poultry and milk, the butter, eggs, hams, vegetables, and meat necessary for the consumption even of a large family—can tell what a very difficult thing it is to cater for an establishment in town, where everything, to the country imagination, seems sold according to its weight in gold—where a housekeeper’s hand is never out of her pocket from one week’s end to another—where it is either bills or cash, but, in any case, ultimately money—where even a few sprigs of parsley, even a bunch of savoury herbs, cannot be procured without purchase, without going through the ceremony of buying that which, at the old home, grew wild, almost, along the sunniest borders—wild, to be had for the mere trouble of gathering.