"Don't talk so, Mr. Jones," said Mrs. Gray, to whom the latter proposition sounded atheistical, "don't!" "Well, but what's a man without capital?" asked Mr. Jones, unconscious of his offence, "why, nothink, Mrs. Gray, nothink! Well, but that's not the question--I've got capital now, you see, and so I am going to set up a grocery business in the rag and bottle shop round the corner; and I hare called to secure your custom--that's all, Mrs. Gray." He winked and chuckled again. Rachel could not help smiling. Mrs. Gray was grave and courteous, like any foreign potentate congratulating his dear brother, Monsieur mon frere, on some fortunate event of his reign. "I called to tell you that, Mrs. Gray," resumed Jones; "and, also, to ask a favour of Miss Gray. I should be so much obliged to 'her, if she could spare my little Mary for half an hour or so, just to look over the house with me." "Of course she can," replied Mrs. Gray for her meek daughter. "Go and put on your bonnet, Mary.'" Mary, whom the tidings of the grocer's shop had most agreeably excited, rose with great alacrity to obey, and promptly returned, with her bonnet on. It was Rachel who let them out. "You need not be in a hurry to come back, dear," she whispered; "there's not more work than Jane and I can well manage." Mary's only reply to this kind speech, was a saucy toss of the head. The little thing already felt an heiress. "How much money have you got, father?" she promptly asked, as they went down the street, "Sixty pounds, my dear." "Law! that ain't much," said Mary, as if she had rolled in guineas all her life. "Well, it isn't," he replied candidly, and exactly in the same spirit; for if there is a thing people promptly get used to, it is money. Mary had always been her father's confidante; he now opened his whole heart to her, and was thereby much relieved. To his great satisfaction, Mary condescended to approve almost without restriction, all he had done. She accompanied him over the house and shop--thought "the whole concern rather dirty," but kindly added, "that when it was cleaned up a bit, it would do;" and finally gave it as her opinion, "that there wasn't a better position in the whole neighbourhood." "Of course there ain't," said Mr. Jones, sitting down on the counter. "The goodwives must either buy from me, or walk a mile. Now it stands to reason that, rather than walk a mile, with babies crying at home, and husbands growling--it stands to reason, I say, that they'll buy from me. Don't it, Mary?" "Of course it does." "Well, that ain't all. You see I know something of business. The interest of capital in business ranges from ten to a hundred per cent according to luck; now I am lucky being alone, so we'll say fifty per cent, which is moderate, ain't it, Mary?" "Of course it is," replied that infallible authority.