"Alas! no,--poor thing! She had not been many months married when the bank broke; and among his friends her wretched husband appears to have forged the names of the trustees to her marriage settlement, and sold out the sums which would otherwise have served her as a competence. Her father, too, was a great sufferer by the bankruptcy, having by his son-in-law's advice placed a considerable portion of his moderate fortune in Alfred's hands for investment, all of which was involved in the general wreck. I am afraid he was a very hard-hearted man: at all events his poor daughter never returned to him. She died, I think, even before the death of Bertram Fletwode. The whole story is very dismal." "Dismal indeed, but pregnant with salutary warnings to those who live in an age of progress. Here you see a family of fair fortune, living hospitably, beloved, revered, more looked up to by their neighbours than the wealthiest nobles; no family not proud to boast alliance with it. All at once, in the tranquil record of this happy race, appears that darling of the age, that hero of progress,--a clever man of business. He be contented to live as his fathers! He be contented with such trifles as competence, respect, and love! Much too clever for that. The age is money-making,--go with the age! He goes with the age. Born a gentleman only, he exalts himself into a trader. But at least he, it seems, if greedy, was not dishonest. He was born a gentleman, but his son was born a trader. The son is a still cleverer man of business; the son is consulted and trusted. Aha! He too goes with the age; to greed he links ambition. The trader's son wishes to return--what? to the rank of gentleman?--gentleman! nonsense! everybody is a gentleman nowadays,--to the title of Lord. How ends it all! Could I sit but for twelve hours in the innermost heart of that Alfred Fletwode; could I see how, step by step from his childhood, the dishonest son was avariciously led on by the honest father to depart from the old /vestigia/ of Fletwodes of Fletwode,--scorning The Enough to covet The More, gaining The More to sigh, 'It is not The Enough,'--I think I might show that the age lives in a house of glass, and had better not for its own sake throw stones on the felon!" "Ah, but, Mr. Chillingly, surely this is a very rare exception in the general--"