"You promised my husband when he was dying that it should be so," she gently urged. "Besides, it is Tom's right. I understood that when he was of a proper age, he was to come in, in accordance with a previous arrangement made between you and poor Thomas." Jacob bit the end of the pen right off and nearly swallowed it. "Thomas left all things in my hands," said he, coughing and choking. "Tom must acquire some further experience yet." "When do you propose settling it, then? How long will it be first?" "Well, that depends, you know. I shall see." "Will it be in another year? Tom will be five-and-twenty then." "Ay, he will: and Val four-and-twenty. How time flies! It seems but the other day that they were in jackets and trousers." "But will it be then--in another year? You have not answered me, Jacob." "And I can't answer you," returned Jacob. "How can I? Don't you understand me when I say I must wait and see?" "You surely will do what is right, Jacob?" "Well now, can you doubt it, Betsy? Of course I shall. When did you hear from George?" Mrs. Chandler rose, obliged to be satisfied. To urgently press any interest of her own was not in her nature. As she shook hands with Jacob she was struck with the sickly appearance of his face. "Are you feeling quite well, Jacob? You look but poorly." "I have felt anything but well for a long time," he replied, in a fretful tone. "I don't know what ails me: too much work, perhaps, but I seem to have strength for nothing." "You should give yourself a rest, Jacob, and take some bark." "Ay. Good-day." Now it came to pass that in turning out of the house, after nodding to Tom and Valentine, who sat at a desk side by side in the room to the left, the door of which stood open, Mrs. Chandler saw the Squire on the opposite side of the street, and crossed over to him. He asked her in a joking way whether she had been in to get six and eightpenceworth of law. She told him what she had been in for, seeing no reason for concealing it. "Bless me, yes!" cried he, in his impulsive way. "I'm sure it's quite time Tom was in the firm. I'll go and talk to Jacob." And when he got in--making straight across the street with the words, and through the passage, and so to the room without halt or ceremony--he saw Jacob leaning back in his chair, his hands thrust into his black side-pockets, and his head bent on his chest in deep thought. The Squire noticed how deep the lines in his brow had grown, just as Mrs. Chandler had. "But you know, Jacob Chandler, that it was an agreement with the dead," urged the Squire, in his eagerness, after listening to some plausible (and shuffling) remarks from Jacob. "An agreement with the dead!" repeated Jacob, looking up at the Squire for explanation. They were both standing on the matting near the fender: which was filled with an untidy mass of torn and twisted scraps of paper. "What do you mean, Squire? I never knew before that the dead could make an agreement."