“The Saxons dine here on Monday,” said Mrs. Jones, with a look of triumph. “They called this week, and I immediately asked them, reserving the news for one of your cross humors, and you were just beginning one at the Macfusses.” Mr. Jones “unknit his threatening brow” and congratulated his wife upon her cleverness. “And never mind, Sally,” continued he, forgetting to use the more musical name of Sara, “I’ll pull down those Macfusses yet, with the fortune I’m making; for I have sworn to be the wealthiest man in ——, and I don’t think Macfuss can say as much. I have the means before me, and if Will can help, ‘there’s no such word as fail.’ Hurrah, Sally! hurrah!” Mr. Jones was like Richard, “himself again,” and almost upset the chiffoniere in the middle of the room. His wife smiled benignantly upon his playfulness, but thought it time to end his exhilaration where it began; “for,” said she to herself, “if any one should hear him!” So she dismissed him by reminding him of the hour, and Mr. Jones left his Penates for his sanctuary, the counting-room. In his mind, if mind it were, there was but one idea, the one of amassing wealth, and he was as unlike that being of superiority, man, as the sloth to the bee. While his limbs moved, while his fingers marked down the all-important figures, his mind lay dormant, his soul stagnant; and forgetful of the treasures that “neither rust nor moth doth consume, where thieves do not break through nor steal,” he left uneared for the harvest which we are bound to reap—the harvest of a good and useful life. Where his treasure was, there also was his heart; but such things pass away, and will be like a drop in the ocean; where then would lie the benefit of all this toil, these struggles for the vain possessions of a passing world? Equally heedless of _her_ real fortune, his wife proceeded to her duty of _une grande toilette_. Calling her sable handmaid, she gave directions for Master Pushaw’s outfit, upon this unusual occasion for display. “Dress him in the suit that came from the North, Cilla,” said she, with an air of Zenobian authority. “I wish to take him with me. Be prompt, and do not cross him, for he would cry, and I cannot have his face swollen. It will disfigure him.”