"Why, you know you think she'll have my money, Saxby." "Hang your money, ma'am!" cried the stockbroker sharply. "I've got plenty of my own, and can make more; and as to yours--why, if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have a penny. It would be all gone in some swindling company. I--I beg your pardon, Miss Raleigh; I--ah--really-- ah--I'm afraid I rather forgot myself--I--" "You're quite right, Saxby, quite right," said Aunt Sophia quietly. "I'm afraid I am a very stupid, sanguine old woman over money matters, and you have saved me several times. But now about Naomi. Whatever is it you want?" "What do I want?" said Saxby. "Yes. Why do you come hanging about here like this? Do you want to marry the girl?" "Well--er--yes, my dear madam; to be candid, that is what I thought. For ever since the day when I first set--" "Thank you: that will do, Saxby. Rhapsodies do sound such silly stuff to people at my age. Really, if you talk like that, I shall feel as if it would be madness to come to consult you again on business." "But really, my dear madam--" "Yes," said Aunt Sophia, interrupting; "I know. Well, then, we'll grant that you like her." "Like her, madam? I worship her?" "No: don't, my good man. Let's be sensible, if we can. My niece Naomi is a very nice, amiable, good girl." "She's an angel, ma'am!" "No; she is not," said Aunt Sophia stiffly; "and so the man who marries her will find. She's only a nice English girl, and I don't want her feelings hurt by any one." "Miss Raleigh, it would be my study to spare her feelings in every way." "If you had the opportunity, my good man. As it happens, I must speak plainly to you, and tell you that I am afraid she has formed an attachment to Mr Prayle." "To him!" groaned Saxby. "Now, look here, Mr Saxby; if you are going to act sensibly, I'll talk to you; if you are going on like that, I've done. This is not part of a play." "Yes, ma'am, it is," said Saxby dolefully; "the tragedy of my life." "Now, don't be a goose, Saxby. If the girl likes somebody else better than you, don't go making yourself miserable about it. Have some common-sense." Saxby shook his head. "There's no common-sense in love." Aunt Sophia looked at him in a half-pitying, half-contemptuous manner. "It isn't very deep, is it?" she said good-humouredly. "I don't know," he said; "only, that somehow she's seemed to me to be like the flowers; and when I've gone to my office every morning, I've bought a rose or something of that kind, and put it in water, and it's been company to me, as if she were there all the time. And now, after what you've told me, ma'am, I don't think I shall ever buy a rose again." He got up, walked to the window and looked out, so that Aunt Sophia should not see his face. "Poor fellow!" she said softly to herself, and it was evident that her sympathies were touched.