ore owed to
him at this crisis not only obedience, but dutiful affection.

When, however, Sarah Jane first heard of her mother's illness, she
seemed to think that she couldn't quarrel with her father fast
enough. Jones had an idea that the old lady's money must go to her
daughters, that she had the power of putting it altogether out of the
hands of her husband, and that having the power she would certainly
exercise it. On this speculation he had married; and as he and his
wife fully concurred in their financial views, it was considered
expedient by them to lose no time in asserting their right. This they
did as soon as the breath was out of the old lady's body.

Jones had married Sarah Jane solely with this view; and, indeed,
it was highly improbable that he should have done so on any other
consideration. Sarah Jane was certainly not a handsome girl. Her neck
was scraggy, her arms lean, and her lips thin; and she resembled
neither her father nor her mother. Her light brown, sandy hair, which
always looked as though it were too thin and too short to adapt
itself to any feminine usage, was also not of her family; but her
disposition was a compound of the paternal and maternal qualities.
She had all her father's painful hesitating timidity, and with it all
her mother's grasping spirit. If there ever was an eye that looked
sharp after the pence, that could weigh the ounces of a servant's
meal at a glance, and foresee and prevent the expenditure of a
farthing, it was the eye of Sarah Jane Brown. They say that it is
as easy to save a fortune as to make one; and in this way, if in no
other, Jones may be said to have got a fortune with his wife.

As soon as the breath was out of Mrs. McCockerell's body, Sarah Jane
was there, taking inventory of the stock. At that moment poor Mr.
Brown was very much to be pitied. He was a man of feeling, and even
if his heart was not touched by his late loss, he knew what was due
to decency. It behoved him now as a widower to forget the deceased
lady's faults, and to put her under the ground with solemnity. This
was done with the strictest propriety; and although he must, of
course, have been thinking a good deal at that time as to whether he
was to be a beggar or a rich man, nevertheless he conducted himself
till after the funeral as though he hadn't a care on his mind, except
the loss of Mrs. B.

Maryanne was as much on the alert as her sister. She had been for the
last six months her mot