effected?  Ah, what?  Had you listened to the sanguine manufacturer your head would have grown giddy with his magnificent proposals, as Allcraft’s had, to the cost of his unhappy self, and still unhappier clients.  As acting is said to be not a bare servile exhibition of nature, but rather an exalted and poetic imitation of the same, so likewise are the pictures of houses, the portraits of geniuses, the representations of business facts, and other works of art which undertake to copy truth, but only embellish it and render it most grateful to the eye.  Nothing could look more substantial than the Glasgow manufactory on paper.  A prettier painting never charmed the eye of speculating amateur.  Allcraft was caught.  Ten thousand pounds, which had been sent out to bring the fifty thousand back, never were seen again.  The manufacturer decamped—­the rickety house gave way, and failed.  From this period Allcraft entangled himself more and more in schemes for making money rapidly and by great strokes, and deeper he fell into the slough of difficulty and danger.  His troubles were commencing when he heard of Mildred’s serious illness, and the certainty of his speedy death.  With an affectionate solicitude, he mentally disposed of the splendid fortune which the sick man could not possibly take with him, and contrived a plan for making it fill up the gaps which misfortune had opened in the banking-house.  This was a new speculation, and promised more than all the rest.  Every energy was called forth—­every faculty.  His plans we already know—­his success has yet to be discovered.  Abraham did not die intestate.  He left a will, bequeathing to Michael, his son and heir, a rotten firm, a dishonourable name, a history of dishonesty, a nest of troubles.  Accompanying his will, there was a letter written in Allcraft’s hand to Michael, imploring the young man to act a child’s part by his unhappy parent.  The elder one urged him by his love and gratitude to save his name from the discredit which an exposure of his affairs must entail upon it; and not only upon it, he added, but upon the living also.  He had procured for him, he said, an alliance which he would never have aspired to—­never would have obtained, had not his father laboured so hardly for his boy’s happiness and welfare.  With management and care, and a gift from his intended wife, nothing need be said—­no exposure would take place—­the house would retain its high character, and in the course of a very few years recover its solvency and prosperity.  A fearful list of the engagements was appended, and an account of every transaction in which the deceased had been concerned.  Michael read and read again every line and word, and he stood thunderstruck at the disclosure.  He raved against his father, swore he would do nothing for the man who had so shamefully involved himself; and, not content with his own ruin, had so wickedly implicated him.  This was the outbreak of the excited youth, but he sobered down,