not seem to be probable,
and his grace was resolved that either the one property or the other
should be duly garnered. Therefore Mr. Fothergill went up to town,
and therefore Mr. Sowerby was, most unwillingly, compelled to have a
business interview with Mr. Fothergill. In the meantime, since last
we saw him, Mr. Sowerby had learned from his sister the answer which
Miss Dunstable had given to his proposition, and knew that he had no
further hope in that direction. There was no further hope thence of
absolute deliverance, but there had been a tender of money services.
To give Mr. Sowerby his due, he had at once declared that it would be
quite out of the question that he should now receive any assistance
of that sort from Miss Dunstable; but his sister had explained to him
that it would be a mere business transaction; that Miss Dunstable
would receive her interest; and that, if she would be content with
four per cent., whereas the duke received five, and other creditors
six, seven, eight, ten, and Heaven only knows how much more, it
might be well for all parties. He, himself, understood, as well as
Fothergill had done, what was the meaning of the duke's message.
Chaldicotes was to be gathered up and garnered, as had been done with
so many another fair property lying in those regions. It was to be
swallowed whole, and the master was to walk out from his old family
hall, to leave the old woods that he loved, to give up utterly to
another the parks and paddocks and pleasant places which he had known
from his earliest infancy, and owned from his earliest manhood.

There can be nothing more bitter to a man than such a surrender.
What, compared to this, can be the loss of wealth to one who has
himself made it, and brought it together, but has never actually seen
it with his bodily eyes? Such wealth has come by one chance, and
goes by another: the loss of it is part of the game which the man is
playing; and if he cannot lose as well as win, he is a poor, weak,
cowardly creature. Such men, as a rule, do know how to bear a mind
fairly equal to adversity. But to have squandered the acres which
have descended from generation to generation; to be the member of
one's family that has ruined that family; to have swallowed up in
one's own maw all that should have graced one's children, and one's
grandchildren! It seems to me that the misfortunes of this world can
hardly go beyond that! Mr. Sowerby, in spite of his recklessness
and that