“Mother,” said her dutiful son, “you have a nose, and beyond that nose you never yet have been 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, while it manifested sufficient respect for them, would preclude all hopes of any future intercourse between them.

Mr. Lindsay did not relish this much; but as he had no particular wish, in consequence of Charles’s illness, to oppose her motives in making the visit, he said she might manage it as she wished—­he would not raise a fresh breeze about it.  He only felt that he was sincerely, sorry for the loss which the Goodwins were about to experience.