e thing is as bad as it can be. The business will be acquired
by Messrs. F----, the next most leading solicitors. With the price they
will give, and with the sacrifice of my cousin's savings, and the
assets of the firm, the money can just be paid. We shall have some six
hundred a year to live upon; my cousin is to enter the office of the
F---- firm as an ordinary clerk. The origin of the disaster is a
melancholy one; it was not that he himself might profit, but to
increase the income of some clients who had lost money and desired a
higher rate of interest for funds left in the hands of the firm. If my
cousin had resisted the demand, there would have been some
unpleasantness, because the money lost had been invested on his advice;
he could not face this, and proceeded to speculate with other money, of
which he was trustee, to fill the gap. Good-nature, imprudence,
credulousness, a faulty grasp of the conditions, and not any deliberate
dishonesty, have been the cause of his ruin. It is a fearful blow to
him, but he is fortunate, perhaps, in being unmarried; I have urged him
to try and get employment elsewhere, but he insists upon facing the
situation in the place where he is known, with a fantastic idea, which
is at the same time noble and chivalrous, of doing penance. Of course
he has no prospects whatever; but I am sure of this, that he grieves
over my lost inheritance far more than he grieves over his own ruin.
His great misery is that some years ago he refused an offer from
Messrs. F---- to amalgamate the two firms.

I feared at first that I might have to sacrifice the rest of my money
as well--money slowly accumulated out of my own labours. And the relief
of finding that this will not be necessary is immense. We must sell our
house at once, and find a smaller one. At present I am not afraid of
the changed circumstances; indeed, if I could only recover my power of
writing, we need not leave our home. The temptation is to get a book
written somehow, because I could make money by any stuff just now. On
the other hand, it will almost be to me a relief to part from the home
so haunted with the memory of Alec--though that will be a dreadful pain
to Maud and Maggie. As far as living more simply goes, that does not
trouble me in the least. I have always been slightly uncomfortable
about the ease and luxury in which we lived. I only wish we had lived
more simply all along, so that I could have put by a little more. I
have tol