Mrs. Cramp found him in the latticed arbour, and sat down opposite to him, taking up her brown shot-silk gown, lest the seat should be dusty. When she told him it was the hearing of his illness which had brought her over to Crabb, he turned cross. He was not ill, he said; only a trifle out of sorts, as every one else must be at times and seasons. By dint of questioning, Mrs. Cramp, who was a stout, comely woman, fond of having her own way, got out of him all Cole had said. "And Cole is right, Jacob: it is rest and change you want," she remarked. "You are sure you do not need it? don't tell me. A stitch in times saves nine, remember." "You know nothing about it, Mary Ann." "I know that you look thinner and thinner every time I see you. Be wise in time, brother." "Cole told me to go away to the seaside for a month. Why, what should I do, mooning for a whole month in a strange place by myself? I should be like a fish out of water." "Take your wife and the girls." "I dare say! They would only worry me with their fine doings. And look at the expense." "I will go with you if you like, Jacob, rather than you should go alone, though it would be an inconvenience to me. And pay my own expenses." "Mary Ann, I am not going at all; or thinking of it. It would be impossible for me to leave my business." Mrs. Cramp, turning over matters in her mind, determined to put the case plainly before him, and did so; telling him that it would be better to leave his business for a temporary period now, than to find shortly that he must leave it for ever. Jacob sat gazing out straight before him at the Malvern Hills, the chain of which lay against the sky in the distance. "If you took my advice, brother, you would retire from business altogether. You have made enough to live without it, I suppose----" "But I have not made enough," he interrupted. "Then you ought to have made it, Jacob." "Oughts don't go for much." "What I mean is, that you ought to have made it, judging by the style in which you live. Two houses, a carriage and ponies (besides your gig), expensive dress, parties: all that should never be gone into, brother, unless the _realized_ income justifies it." "It is the style we live in that has not let me put by, Mary Ann. I don't tell you I have put nothing by: I have put a little by year by year; but it is not enough to live upon." "Then make arrangements for half the proceeds of the business to be given over to you. Let the two boys take to it, and----" "_Who?_" cried Jacob. "The two boys, Tom and Valentine. It will be theirs some time, you know, Jacob: let them have it at once. Tom's name must be first, as it ought to be. Valentine----" "I have no intention of doing anything of the kind," interposed Jacob, sharply. "I shall keep the business in my own hands as long as I live. Perhaps I may take Valentine into it: not Tom."