Maurice was an easy-tempered man, and loved quiet; and when he found that he was reproached for something or other whenever he came into his own house, he began to dislike the thought of going home after his day’s work, and loitered at public-houses sometimes, but more frequently at the lottery-office. As the lottery was now drawing, his whole thoughts were fixed upon his ticket; and he neglected his work at the manufactory. “What signify a few shillings wages, more or less?” said he to himself. “If my ticket should come up a prize, it makes a rich man of me at once.” His ticket at last was drawn a prize of five thousand pounds! He was almost out of his senses with joy! He ran home to tell the news. “A prize! a prize, Dolly!” cried he, as soon as he had breath to speak. “That comes of taking my advice!” said Dolly. “A five thousand pound prize! my dear Ellen,” cried he, and down he kicked her spinning-wheel. “I wish we may be as happy with it as we have been without it, Maurice,” said Ellen; and calmly lifted her spinning-wheel up again. “No more spinning-wheels!” cried Maurice; “no more spinning! no more work! We have nothing to do now but to be as happy as the day is long. Wife, I say, put by that wheel.” “You’re a lady now; and ought to look and behave like a lady,” added Mrs. Dolly, stretching up her head, “and not stand moping over an old spinning-wheel.” “I don’t know how to look and behave like a lady,” said Ellen, and sighed: “but I hopes Maurice won’t love me the less for that.” Mrs. Dolly was for some time wholly taken up with the pleasure of laying out money, and “preparing,” as she said, “to look like somebody.” She had many acquaintances at Paddington, she said, and she knew of a very snug house there, where they could all live very genteel. She was impatient to go thither, for two reasons; that she might make a figure in the eyes of these acquaintances, and that she might get Maurice and little George away from William Deane, who was now become more than ever the object of her aversion and contempt; for he actually advised his friend not to think of living in idleness, though he had five thousand pounds. William moreover recommended it to him to put his money out to interest, or to dispose of a good part of it in stocking a farm, or in fitting out a shop. Ellen, being a farmer’s daughter, knew well the management of a dairy; and, when a girl, had also assisted in a haberdasher’s shop, that was kept in Derby by her uncle; so she was able and willing, she said, to assist her husband in whichever of these ways of life he should take to.