in a consoling voice. "Every thing depends on that; and I
haven't much doubt of it. Alfred Dinks is a fool, my dear, but Fanny Newt
is not; and Fanny Newt is not the girl to marry a fool, except for
reasons. You may trust Fanny, Nancy. You may depend there was some
foolish something with Hope Wayne, on the part of Alfred, and Fanny has
cut the knot she was not sure of untying. Pooh! pooh! When you are as old
as I am you won't be distressed over these things. Fanny Newt is fully
weaned. She wants an establishment, and she has got it. There are plenty
of people who would have been glad to marry their daughters to Alfred
Dinks. I can tell you there are some great advantages in having a fool
for your husband. Don't you see Fanny never would have been happy with a
man she couldn't manage. It's quite right, my dear."

At this moment the bell rang, and Mrs. Newt, not wishing to be caught
with red eyes, called May, who had looked on at this debate, and left the
room.

While Mrs. Dagon had been so volubly talking she had also been busily
thinking. She knew that if Alfred were a fool his mother was not--at
least, not in the way she meant. There had been no love lost between the
ladies, so that Mrs. Dagon was disposed to criticise the other's conduct
very closely. She saw, therefore, that if Alfred Dinks were not rich--and
it certainly was a question whether he were so really, or only in
expectation from Mr. Burt--then also he might not be engaged to Hope
Wayne. But the story of his wealth and his engagement might very easily
have been the _ruse_ by which the skillful Mrs. Dinks meant to conduct
her campaign in New York. In that case, what was more likely than that
she should have improved Fanny's evident delusion in regard to her son,
and, by suggesting to him an elopement, have secured for him the daughter
of a merchant so universally reputed wealthy as Boniface Newt?

Mrs. Dagon was clever--so was Mrs. Dinks; and it is the homage that one
clever person always pays to another to believe the other capable of
every thing that occurs to himself.

In the matter of the marriage Mrs. Budlong Dinks had been defeated, but
she was not dismayed. She had lost Hope Wayne, indeed, and she could no
longer hope, by the marriage of Alfred with his cousin, to consolidate
the Burt property in her family. She had been very indignant--very deeply
disappointed. But she still loved her son, and the meditation of a night
refreshed her.

Upon a s