We've been hard pressed
enough at times, but something has always turned up. Have not I told you
a hundred times Providence will provide?"

"If you put it like that, sir--"

"I do put it like that. I have always been helped, you know, sometimes
when it seemed the last moment. Leave it to me. I have no more doubt,"
said Mr. May, lifting up a countenance which was by no means so
untroubled as could have been wished, "that when the time comes all will
be well, than I have of the sun rising to-morrow--which it will," he
added with some solemnity, "whether you and I live to see it or not.
Leave it all, I say, to me."

Cotsdean did not make any reply. He was overawed by this solemnity of
tone, and knew his place too well to set himself up against his
clergyman; but still it cannot be denied that the decision was less
satisfactory than one of much less exalted tone might have been. He had
not the courage to say anything--he withdrew with his hat in his hand,
and a cloud over his face. But as he left the house the doubt in his
soul breathed itself forth. "If so be as neither me nor him see it rise,
what good will that do to my family," said Cotsdean to himself, and went
his way to his closed shop, through all the sacks of seeds and dry
rustling grain, with a heavy heart. He was a corn-factor in a tolerable
business, which, as most of the bankers of Carlingford knew, he had some
difficulty in carrying along, being generally in want of money; but this
was not so rare a circumstance that any special notice should be taken
of it. Everybody who knew thought it was very kind of Mr. May to back
him up as he did, and even to put his name to bills for poor Cotsdean,
to whom, indeed, he was known to have been very kind in many ways. But
nobody was aware how little of these said bills went to Cotsdean, and
how much to Mr. May.

When he was gone, the clergyman threw himself back again into his chair
with a pale face. Providence, which he treated like some sort of neutral
deity, and was so very sure of having on his side when he spoke to
Cotsdean, did not feel so near to him, or so much under his command,
when Cotsdean was gone. There were still two days; but if before that he
could not make some provision, what was to be done? He was not a cruel
or bad man, and would have suffered keenly had anything happened to poor
Cotsdean and his family on his account. But they must be sacrificed if
it came to that, and the thought was very appall