here, Timms," said Mr Hazlit, abruptly, as he turned round and
walked out of the closet, "I want to speak to you. I am no doctor, but
depend upon it your wife will _not_ die. There is a very small
building--quite a hut I may say--near my house--ahem! Near my cottage
close to the sea, which is at present to let. I advise you strongly to
take that hut and start a green-grocery there. I'm not aware that there
is one in the immediate neighbourhood, and there are many respectable
families about whose custom you might doubtless count on; at all events,
you would be sure of ours to begin with. The sea-air would do your wife
a world of good, and the sea-beach would be an agreeable and extensive
playground for your children."

The green-grocer stood almost aghast! The energy with which Mr Hazlit
poured out his words, and, as it seemed to Timms, the free and easy
magnificence of his ideas were overpowering.

"W'y, sir, I ain't got no money to do sitch a thing with," he said at
last, with a broad grin.

"Yes, you have," said Mr Hazlit, again pulling out his purse and
emptying its golden contents on the table in a little heap, from which
he counted fifteen sovereigns. "My debt to you amounts, I believe, to
twenty pounds; five I have just paid to your landlord, here is the
balance. You needn't mind a receipt. Send me the discharged account at
your leisure, and think over what I have suggested. Aileen, my dear, we
will go now."

Aileen said good-night at once to the sick woman and followed her father
as he went out, repeating--"Good-evening, Timms, think over my
suggestion."

They walked slowly home without speaking. Soon they reached the cottage
by the sea. As they stood under the trellis-work porch the merchant
turned round and gazed at the sun, which was just dipping into the
horizon, flooding sea and sky with golden glory.

"Aileen," he said in a low voice, "I have commenced life at last--life
in earnest. I was a poor fool once. Through grace I am a rich man
now."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

SHOWS HOW OUR HERO FORMED PLANS, HOW MISS PRITTY FORMED PLOTS, AND HOW
THE SMALL DOMESTIC AMUSED HERSELF.

On a certain cold, raw, bleak, biting, bitter day in November, our hero
found himself comfortably situated at the bottom of the sea.

We say `comfortably' advisedly and comparatively, for, as compared with
the men whose duty it was to send air down to him, Edgar Berrington was
in a state of decided comfort. A