u might marry almost at once."

"That's what I should like."

"And come and live here."

"In this house?"

"Why not? I'm nobody. You'd soon find that I'm nobody."

"That's nonsense, Uncle Prosper. Of course you're everybody in your own
house."

"You might endure it for six months in the year."

Harry thought of the sermons, but resolved at once to face them boldly.
"I am only thinking how generous you are."

"It's what I mean. I don't know the young lady, and perhaps she mightn't
like living with an old gentleman. In regard to the other six months,
I'll raise the two hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred pounds. If
she thinks well of it, she should come here first and let me see her.
She and her mother might both come." Then there was a pause. "I should
not know how to bear it,--I should not, indeed. But let them both come."

After some farther delay this was at last decided on. Harry went away
supremely happy and very grateful, and Mr. Prosper was left to meditate
on the terrible step he had taken.

CHAPTER LVIII.

MR. SCARBOROUGH'S DEATH.

It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Barry, when he heard the last story
from Tretton, began to think that his partner was not so wide-awake as
he had hitherto always regarded him. As time runs on, such a result
generally takes place in all close connections between the old and the
young. Ten years ago Mr. Barry had looked up to Mr. Grey with a trustful
respect. Words which fell from Mr. Grey were certainly words of truth,
but they were, in Mr. Barry's then estimation, words of wisdom also.
Gradually an altered feeling had grown up; and Mr. Barry, though he did
not doubt the truth, thought less about it. But he did doubt the wisdom
constantly. The wisdom practised under Mr. Barry's vice-management was
not quite the same as Mr. Grey's. And Mr. Barry had come to understand
that though it might be well to tell the truth on occasions, it was
folly to suppose that any one else would do so. He had always thought
that Mr. Grey had gone a little too fast in believing Squire
Scarborough's first story. "But you've been to Nice, yourself, and
discovered that it is true," Mr. Grey would say. Mr. Barry would shake
his head, and declare that in having to deal with a man of such varied
intellect as Mr. Scarborough there was no coming at the bottom of a
story.

But there had been no question of any alterations in the mode of
conducting the business of the firm. Mr. Grey had