'No--no. Sir Samuel does not allow of any difficulties or awkwardness of that kind. It is not about myself that I am here, but about my sister, Elsie.' 'Yes? What about her? Sit down, and let me hear.' 'Well, you know Elsie has always been a trouble to us on account of her headstrong and wilful ways. She will not look on things from a reasonable point of view. You know that my mother is not rich, as I have learnt to consider rich, though of course she has enough for a simple life and a man-servant and a one-horse brougham. Do you know,' she added pensively, 'I have often found it difficult not to repine at a Providence which removes a father when he was beginning so well, and actually on the high-road to a great fortune.' 'It is certainly difficult to understand the wisdom of these disappointments and disasters. We must accept, Hilda, what we cannot escape or explain.' 'Yes--and my mother had nothing but a poor thousand a year!--though I am sure that she has greatly bettered her circumstances by her transactions in the City. Well--I have done all I can, by precept and by example, to turn my sister's mind into the right direction. Mr. Dering'--by long habit Hilda still called her guardian, now her brother-in-law, by his surname--'you would hardly believe the folly that Elsie talks about money.' 'Perhaps because she has none. Those who have no property do not understand it. Young people do not know what it means or what it commands. And whether they have it or not, young people do not know what the acquisition of property means--the industry, the watchfulness, the carefulness, the self-denial. So Elsie talks folly about money--well, well'--he smiled indulgently--'we shall see.' 'It is not only that she talks, but she acts. Mr. Dering, we are in despair about her. You know the Rodings?' 'Roding Brothers? Everybody knows Roding Brothers.' 'Algy Roding, the eldest son of the senior partner--enormously rich--is gone--quite gone--foolish about Elsie. He has been at me a dozen times about her. He has called at the house to see her. He cares nothing at all about her having no money. She refuses even to hear his name mentioned. Between ourselves, he has not been, I believe, a very steady young man; but of course he would settle down; we could entirely trust to a wife's influence in that respect: the past could easily be forgotten--in fact, Elsie need never know it: and the position would be splendid. Even mine would not compare with it.' 'Why does she object to the man?' 'Says he is an ugly little snob. There is a becoming spirit for a girl to receive so rich a lover! But that is not all. She might have him if she chose, snob or not, but she prefers one of your clerks--actually, Mr. Dering, one of your clerks.' 'I have learned something of this from your mother. She is engaged, I am told, to young Austin, one of my managing clerks.'