Here it would seem that Maclaine had laid aside all thoughts of the fine gentleman, and had really determined to make the most of his wife’s fortune by industry and diligence. He took a house in Welbeck street, and set up a grocer’s and chandler’s shop; was very obliging to his customers, punctual in his dealings, and while his wife lived, was esteemed by his neighbors a careful and industrious man. However, though at times, and while he was in his shop, he appeared to like his business, yet in parties of pleasure, which he made but too often, and on holydays, he affected the dress of a gentleman, and thus created expenses which only a gradual encroachment on his capital enabled him to meet; insomuch that when his wife died, which was about three years after their marriage, he resolved to leave off business, and converted his furniture and goods into the miserable sum of eighty-five pounds, which, perhaps, with frugality, might have supported him in business, but which was at all times too small a sum for Mr. Maclaine. His mother-in-law consenting to take charge of his only daughter, and once more in a manner a single man, with his eighty-five pounds in his pocket, again did the desire of appearing the gay fine gentleman obtrude itself upon his mind, and his old project of marrying a rich fortune engrossed all his faculties. For this purpose, Mr. Maclaine, who but a few weeks before was not ashamed to appear in a patched coat, or to carry a halfpenny-worth of coal or sand to his customers, now hired handsome apartments near Soho square, and resumed his laced clothes, and a hat and feather. But, however unreasonable to others this sudden transition from the grub to the butterfly might appear, Mr. Maclaine had very good private reasons for his actions. It appears that during his wife’s last illness, she had been attended by one Plunket, as a surgeon and apothecary; this Plunket, after the decease of the poor woman, opened his mind to Maclaine, saying, that though the latter had lost a good wife, yet, seeing that she was gone, it was of no use to despond or to repine, particularly as it might eventually turn out the most lucky circumstance in his life. He added at the same time, that if Maclaine would agree to share the fortune with him, he could help him to a lady with ten thousand pounds at least in her own right.