Consider, again. Every profession gets rich out of its own mine. There is the mine Ecclesiastic, the mine Medical, the mine Artistic, the mine Legal. The last-named contains leases, covenants, agreements, wills, bonds, mortgages, actions, partnerships, transfers, conveyances, county courts, and other treasures, all to be had for the digging. But--and this is too often forgotten--there is only a limited quantity to be taken out of the mine every year, and there is not enough to go round, except in very minute portions. And since, until we become socialists at heart, we shall all of us continue to desire for our share that which is called the mess of Benjamin, and since all cannot get that mess--which Mr. Dering had enjoyed for the whole of his life--or anything like that desirable portion, most young solicitors go in great heaviness of spirit--hang their heads, corrugate their foreheads, write despairing letters to the girls they left behind them, and with grumbling gratitude take the hundred or two hundred a year which is offered for their services as managing clerks. Again, the Legal mine seems of late years not to yield anything like so much as formerly. There has been a cruel shrinkage all over the country, and especially in country towns: the boom of building seems to have come to an end: the agricultural depression has dragged down with it an immense number of people who formerly flourished with the lawyers, and, by means of their savings, investments, leases, and partnerships and quarrels, made many a solicitor fat and happy. That is all gone. It used to be easy, if one had a little money, to buy a partnership. Now it is no longer possible, or, at least, no longer easy. Nobody has a business greater than he himself can manage; everybody has got a son coming in. These considerations show why the question was difficult to answer. Said George in reply, but with some confusion: 'We are prepared to live on little. We are not in the least extravagant: Elsie will rough it. Besides, she has her Art----' 'Out of which she makes at present nothing a year.' 'But she will get on--and I may hope, may reasonably hope, some time to make an income larger than my present one.' 'You may hope--you may hope. But the position is not hopeful. In fact, George Austin, you must marry on ten times your present income, or not at all.' 'But I assure you, sir, our ideas are truly modest, and we have made up our minds how we can live and pay our way.' 'You think you have. That is to say, you have prepared a table of expenses showing how, with twopence to spare, you can live very well on two hundred pounds a year. Of course you put down nothing for the thousand and one little unexpected things which everybody of your education and habits pays for every day.' 'We have provided as far as we can see.'