es when he is with him?"
said Mrs Tom one morning, when Miss Mackenzie had come down on the
appearance of Mr Rubb in the sick room.

"He is talking about the business, I suppose."

"What good can that do? Tom can't say anything about that, as to how
it should be done. He thinks a great deal about Sam Rubb; but it's
more than I do."

"They must necessarily be in each other's confidence, I should say."

"He's not in my confidence. My belief is he's been a deal too clever
for Tom; and that he'll turn out to be too clever--for me, and--my
poor orphans." Upon which Mrs Tom put her handkerchief up to her
eyes. "There; he's coming down," continued the wife. "Do you go up
now, and make Tom tell you what it is that Sam Rubb has been saying
to him."

Margaret Mackenzie did go up as she heard Mr Rubb close the
front door; but she had no such purpose as that with which her
sister-in-law had striven to inspire her. She had no wish to make
the sick man tell her anything that he did not wish to tell. In
considering the matter within her own breast, she owned to herself
that she did not expect much from the Rubbs in aid of the wants of
her nephews and nieces; but what would be the use of troubling a
dying man about that? She had agreed with herself to believe that
the oilcloth business was a bad affair, and that it would be well to
hope for nothing from it. That her brother to the last should harass
himself about the business was only natural; but there could be
no reason why she should harass him on the same subject. She had
recognised the fact that his widow and children must be supported by
her; and had she now been told that the oilcloth factory had been
absolutely abandoned as being worth nothing, it would not have caused
her much disappointment. She thought a great deal more of the railway
company that was going to buy her property under such favourable
circumstances.

She was, therefore, much surprised when her brother began about the
business as soon as she had seated herself. I do not know that the
reader need be delayed with any of the details that he gave her, or
with the contents of the papers which he showed her. She, however,
found herself compelled to go into the matter, and compelled also
to make an endeavour to understand it. It seemed that everything
hung upon Samuel Rubb, junior, except the fact that Samuel Rubb's
father, who now never went near the place, got more than half the net
profits; and the further