een able to look with anything like perspicuity. If
you don't visit them, your good-natured noodle of a husband will, and
perhaps the result of that visit may cut us out of the property forever.
At breakfast this morning you will propose the visit, which, mark
you, is to be made in the name and on behalf of all the family. You,
consequently, being the deputation on this occasion, both your husband
and Maria will not feel themselves called upon to see them. You can,
besides, say that her state of health precludes her from seeing any one
out of her own family, and thus all risk of an explanation will be
avoided. It is best to make everything safe; but that she can't live I
know, because I feel that my power and influence are upon her, and that
the force of this Evil Eye of mine has killed her. I told you this
before, I think."

"Even so," said his mother; "it is only what I have said, a judicial
punishment for their villany. Villany, Harry, never prospers."

"Egad, my dear mother," he replied, "I know of nothing so prosperous:
look through life and you will see the villain thrive upon his fraud and
iniquity, where the honest man--the man of integrity, who binds himself
by all the principles of what are called honor and morality--is elbowed
out of prosperity by the knave, the swindler, and the hypocrite. O, no,
my dear mother, the two worst passports to independence and success in
life are truth and honesty."

"Well, Harry, I am a bad logician, and will not dispute it with you; but
I am far from well, and I don't think I shall be able to visit them for
two or three davs at least."

"But, in the meantime, express your intention to do so--on behalf of
the family, mark; assume your right as the proprietor of this place,
and as its representative, and then your visit will be considered as the
visit of the whole family. In the meantime, mark me, the girl is dead. I
have accomplished that gratifying event, so that, after all, your visit
will be a mere matter of form. When you reach their house you will
probably find it the house of death."

"And then," replied his mother, "the twelve hundred a year is yours for
life, and the property of your children after you. Thank God!"

That morning at breakfast she expressed her determination to visit the
Goodwins, making it, she said, a visit from the family in general; such
a visit, she added, as might be proper on their (the Lindsays) part,
but yet such an act of neighborhood that,