affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and
contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast
from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The
farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred pounds--outlying
debts, or so, excluded--as what Anthony's will, in all likelihood, would
be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand.
Bequeathed--how? To him and to his children. But to the children in
reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might make capital
marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two young
husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any life of ease
and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or even
twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning no more
than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot across him, and
his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the patient, good,
grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived and died to enrich
and elevate the family. At the same time, he could not refrain from
thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was, though bent, sound on
his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner, would be accepted by any Life
Insurance office, at a moderate rate, considering his age. The farmer
thought of his own health, and it was with a pang that he fancied himself
being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who
seems to issue upon us applicants from out the muffled folding doors of
Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and forthwith writes down our
fateful dates). Probably, Anthony would not have to pay a higher rate of
interest than he.

"Are you insured, brother Tony?" the question escaped him.

"No, I ain't, brother William John;" Anthony went on nodding like an
automaton set in motion. "There's two sides to that. I'm a long-lived
man. Long-lived men don't insure; that is, unless they're fools. That's
how the Offices thrive."

"Case of accident?" the farmer suggested.

"Oh! nothing happens to me," replied Anthony.

The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.

"Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?"

"With all my heart, brother William John."

The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation
which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the date
of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his seni