"And her father was part owner of the mill and business. Well, the girl's money is in the business still." "Phew! that's bad, Mr. Tinker." "I know it is, and the worst of it, I've kept no separate accounts. I've treated Richard's share just as my own. But my will must put all that right. Subject to my wife's provision Dorothy must have all. There'll be nob'dy else for it." Wimpenny did not speak for some time. He chewed the end of his quill instead, a way he had when absorbed in thought. "It's a bad business Mr. Tinker;" he said at length; "it was scarcely like you to confound accounts in that loose fashion and to put trust money into what was practically your own business. People might call it by an ugly name." Jabez flushed angrily. "What do you mean, sir? I treated my niece as my daughter, brought her up in my house as my own child, and now I propose to leave her my sole heiress. Nothing very ugly about that, I should think." "Not as things have turned out," was the reply, "but you know as well as I do they _might_ have turned out differently, and where would your ward's money have been? However, it's to-day and tomorrow we're concerned with, not yesterday. Has it occurred to you that Miss Dorothy may marry?" "Of course she may. One doesn't need to pay six-and-eight to learn that." "Exactly," said the unruffled lawyer. "Now an adopted daughter and an adopted daughter's husband are often quite two different beings, and should Miss Tinker marry it's the husband we should have to reckon with." "Well, I could pay him out, I suppose?" "Of course you could--by selling Wilberlee at a sacrifice, a great sacrifice, or by putting a heavy mortgage on the property if it would carry it. We must remember that there are eighteen years of profits to set-off against Miss Dorothy's up-bringing, and the Court of Chancery does not weigh trustees' profits in a hair-balance, I can tell you." Mr. Tinker rose impatiently. "I didn't come here to have you raise difficulties but to meet them, nor yet to be frightened by bug-bears." "Now you are unreasonable, Mr. Tinker. I shouldn't be worth my salt if I didn't put the situation plainly before you. You don't go to a doctor for smooth sayings nor yet for sweetmeats instead of pills. No use getting huffed, you know." But Mr. Tinker was huffed. He was a Tinker and a magistrate, and had been a man of mark these thirty years, and was not pleasant to be told these things by a young lawyer who might have been his son. But he had the good sense to know that what Nehemiah said was truth. "Ah, well," he said, "I dare say we are meeting trouble half-way. You know what I want doing. I did everything for the best, and I don't know that I care very much what the world says or your infernal Court of Chancery either, if it comes to that. When will you have the will ready, Wimpenny?" "Let me see. To-day's Monday. Say Thursday of next week. We close for Whitsuntide, you know."