hat all
connected with the firm and family began to feel that the house of
Brown, Jones, and Robinson, had not succeeded in establishing itself
on a sound basis. Mr. Brown was despondent, and often unwell. The
Jones's were actuated by no ambition to raise themselves to the
position of British merchants, but by a greedy desire to get what
little might be gotten in the scramble. Robinson still kept his
shoulder to the collar, but he did so with but little hope. He had
made a fatal mistake in leaguing himself with uncongenial partners,
and began to feel that this mistake must be expiated by the ruin of
his present venture. Under such circumstances Maryanne Brown was not
unreasonable in desiring that something should be done. She had now
given a tacit consent to that plan for bringing back Brisket, and
consequently her brother-in-law went at once to work.

It must be acknowledged that the time was short. When Brisket, with
such easy indifference, postponed his visit to Bishopsgate Street
till the Saturday, giving to Gogham Market and the slaughtering of
his beasts a preference to the renewal of his love, he regarded the
task before him as a light one. But it must be supposed that it was
no light task to Miss Brown. On the Tuesday following that Saturday,
she would, if she were true to her word, join herself in wedlock to
George Robinson. She now purposed to be untrue to her word; but it
must be presumed that she had some misgivings at the heart when she
thought of the task before her.

On the Thursday and the Friday she managed to avoid Robinson. On the
Saturday morning they met in her father's room for a minute, and when
he attempted to exercise a privilege to which his near approaching
nuptials certainly entitled him, she repulsed him sullenly: "Oh,
come; none of that." "I shall require the more on Tuesday," he
replied, with his ordinary good-humour. She spoke nothing further to
him then, but left the room and went away to her friend Mrs. Poppins.

Robinson belonged to a political debating club, which met on every
Saturday evening at the "Goose and Gridiron" in one of the lanes
behind the church in Fleet Street. It was, therefore, considered that
the new compact might be made in Bishopsgate Street on that evening
without any danger of interruption from him. But at the hour of
dinner on that day, a word was whispered into his ear by Poppins. "I
don't suppose you care about it," said he, "but there's going to be
some so