rably is such a poor
wretch cheated! How he gropes about, making his bargain with blind
eyes; thinking that he sees beyond his neighbours! Who is so green,
so soft, so foolishly the victim of the sorriest sharper as this
man? Weigh out all his past, and what has it been? Weigh out his
future--if you can--and think what it must be. Poor, dull Faustus!
What! thou hast lost everything among the thimble-riggers? Poor,
dull, stupid wretch!

Mr. Bertram had not been a good man, nor had he been a wise man. But
he had been highly respectable, and his memory is embalmed in tons of
marble and heaps of monumental urns. Epitaphs, believed to be true,
testify to his worth; and deeds, which are sometimes as false as
epitaphs, do the same. He is a man of whom the world has agreed to
say good things; to whom fame, that rich City fame, which speaks with
a cornet-a-piston made of gold, instead of a brazen trumpet, has been
very kind.--But, nevertheless, he was not a good man. As regards him,
it will only remain for us to declare what was his will, and that
shall be done in the next chapter.

It was settled that he should be buried on the sixth day after his
death, and that his will should be read after his funeral. George had
now to manage everything, and to decide who should be summoned to the
reading. There were two whom he felt bound to call thither, though to
them the reading he knew would be a bitter grief. There was, in the
first place, his father, Sir Lionel, whose calls for money had not of
late decreased in urgency. It would be seemly that he should come;
but the opening of the will would not be a pleasant hour for him.
Then there would be Sir Henry. He also was, of course, summoned,
painful as it was to his wife to have to leave the house at such a
time. Nor, indeed, did he wait to be invited; for he had written to
say that he should be there before he received George Bertram's note.
Mr. Pritchett also was sent for, and the old man's attorney.

And then, when these arrangements had been made, the thoughts of
the living reverted from the dead to themselves. How should those
three persons who now occupied that house so lovingly provide for
themselves? and where should they fix their residence? George's
brotherly love for his cousin was very well in theory: it was well to
say that the past had been forgotten; but there are things for which
no memory can lose its hold. He and Caroline had loved each other
with other love than t