ear. I don't mind it the least in the world--only
sometimes, you know, it is a little tedious."

"I'll endeavour to avoid that, so I may as well break the ice at
once. You know enough of Nathaniel's affairs to be aware that he is
not a very rich man."

"Since you do ask me about it, I suppose there's no harm in saying
that I believe him to be a very poor man."

"Not the least harm in the world, but just the reverse. Whatever may
come of this, my wish is that the truth should be told scrupulously
on all sides; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"_Magna est veritas_," said Miss Dunstable. "The Bishop of Barchester
taught me as much Latin as that at Chaldicotes; and he did add some
more, but there was a long word, and I forgot it."

"The bishop was quite right, my dear, I'm sure. But if you go to your
Latin, I'm lost. As we were just now saying, my brother's pecuniary
affairs are in a very bad state. He has a beautiful property of
his own, which has been in the family for I can't say how many
centuries--long before the Conquest, I know."

"I wonder what my ancestors were then?"

"It does not much signify to any of us," said Mrs. Harold Smith, with
a moral shake of her head, "what our ancestors were; but it's a sad
thing to see an old property go to ruin."

"Yes, indeed; we none of us like to see our property going to ruin,
whether it be old or new. I have some of that sort of feeling
already, although mine was only made the other day out of an
apothecary's shop."

"God forbid that I should ever help you to ruin it," said Mrs. Harold
Smith. "I should be sorry to be the means of your losing a ten-pound
note."

"_Magna est veritas_, as the dear bishop said," exclaimed Miss
Dunstable. "Let us have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, as we agreed just now." Mrs. Harold Smith did begin to
find that the task before her was difficult. There was a hardness
about Miss Dunstable when matters of business were concerned on
which it seemed almost impossible to make any impression. It was not
that she had evinced any determination to refuse the tender of Mr.
Sowerby's hand; but she was so painfully resolute not to have dust
thrown in her eyes! Mrs. Harold Smith had commenced with a mind fixed
upon avoiding what she called humbug; but this sort of humbug had
become so prominent a part of her usual rhetoric, that she found it
very hard to abandon it. "And that's what I wish," said she.