If we were to say that there was an atom of affection in a concern of this kind, we would assuredly be doing not only Mr Caleb a great injustice, but be committing a libel on the taste of our sex; and, to be sure, save for the money, there was none at all. But we have more to say; and that is, that, where a man does not love the woman (as why should he?) whom he has married for money, it follows, as a natural corollary, that he wishes her dead. With "a trembling hand," like that of the poet Tibullus, he would hold the fair one, when dying; but then the hand would tremble lest she should recover, not lest she should go the way of all flesh. But, alas for the plans of mortals! the greatest geniuses sometimes fail in noble undertakings; and, not long after Mr Crabbin had begun to discover ailing symptoms on the part of his helpmate, the truth broke upon him that he was about to become a father; and a father, too, in good time, he became, of as healthy a child as ever blessed a living husband who liked his wife. "If I am to have half-a-dozen, or mayhap a dozen, of these," said he, "the devil a merchant that ever sold cheaper than he bought, ever made so bad a bargain. Every one of those creatures will cost, at least, three hundred pounds; so that, if I shall have six of them, I will be a loser to the extent of five hundred and fifty." The speech was prophetic; for every year, for a period of six, the consumptive Mrs Amelia Crabbin presented her husband with a healthy pledge; and on every birth-day Mr Caleb made a speech almost the same, but with increased lugubrity. But for this he might have found very good authority among the ancients; and if he had known of that strange man who wept at the birth of a child, or of Xenophon, who continued the job of a sacrifice he was at, though a messenger told him of the death of his boy, he would have thought them very sensible men, of a very different kidney from the fool, John Zopilah, who died of joy, when he heard that his wife had brought him an heir male. But it availed Mr Caleb nothing. "Better," said he, "I had stuck by the counter; for I might have become bankrupt as often as I chose; and, if I had made the never a penny by it, I might at least have got quit of my creditors; but children are a sort of creditors that a man cannot sweep off by any means, not even the famous cessio."