It was something like the old-fashioned reading of the will, but before the funeral instead of after. They sat expectant, hungrily expectant. Out of so many millions, surely, surely something would come to every one! Would it take the form of hundreds? "Alma," said the pew-opener, coming along in the omnibus, "he's got a good heart; you can see it in his deep blue eye. He's bound to give us what we ask--and Alice my own first cousin and all, and you but one removed." "Perhaps Cousin Charles has been at him behind our backs." It is disheartening to observe the readiness with which young ladies on a certain social level ascribe and suspect the baser springs of action. "Trust him!" The lady of the pews should have learned more Christian charity. "But I hope he won't be able to poison Cousin John's mind against honest people. I call him 'Cousin-John-by-marriage,' not 'Mr. Haveril,' and I say he took us over with Alice when he married her. A man marries, my dear, into his wife's family. Alma!" "What is it, mother?" "They've got no children. Somebody must have it when they go. Why not you and me?" "Why not, mother? We could make a good use of it." "We could. Ah!" She closed her eyes for the space of a furlong. "Mother, how much did you ask for?" "A hundred and twenty pounds. I could do it for less, perhaps, because there's my own furniture. He must give it; he can't refuse--and me Alice's first cousin, and you but one removed. My dear, I've always longed to have a Margate lodging-house since I stood upon Margate jetty as a girl, and paid a Margate bill as a grown woman, before you were born." "I've asked for seventy pounds. I believe I could start respectably for less; but seventy would be plenty. And oh! to sit behind your own counter, covered with dolls and fancy-work and pretty things, and have no work to do! Oh!" She clasped her hands in ecstasy. "Yes, Alma; it's all very well if the people come in to buy your things. But what do you know about shops and what to charge?" "Come to that, mother, what do you know about keeping lodgings?" It was with speculations such as these, with castles in the air or in Spain, that the cousins beguiled their way towards the Hôtel Métropole. The fancy of the broken one dwelt upon the tobacco-shop. It seems that this kind of shop attracts many of the best and brightest. There is so little to do; the money drops in all day long; you can smoke your own tobacco morning, noon, and night, while the laughing hours dance along and strew the way with roses. The bankrupt looked, indeed, as if roses would be a change for him after his long staying among the flagons and the apples. "I asked you, when you were here last"--John Haveril remained standing--"to send me letters if you wanted me to do anything. I wanted to know quite clearly what you wanted. You have done so. I find, as I expected, that you all want me to give you money."