indeed."

"Oh, don't do that," said the old gentleman. "Of course, other
arrangements must be made; and, much as it will pain me to terminate
my connection with Messrs. Cossey, they shall be made."

"But I think," went on the lawyer, without any notice of his
interruption, "that you misunderstand the matter a little. Cossey and
Son are only a trading corporation, whose object is to make money by
lending it, or otherwise--at all hazards to make money. The kind of
feeling that you allude to, and that might induce them, in
consideration of long intimacy and close connection in the past, to
forego the opportunity of so doing and even to run a risk of loss, is
a thing which belongs to former generations. But the present is a
strictly commercial age, and we are the most commercial of the trading
nations. Cossey and Son move with the times, that is all, and they
would rather sell up a dozen families who had dealt with them for two
centuries than lose five hundred pounds, provided, of course, that
they could do so without scandal and loss of public respect, which,
where a banking house is concerned, also means a loss of custom. I am
a great lover of the past myself, and believe that our ancestors' ways
of doing business were, on the whole, better and more charitable than
ours, but I have to make my living and take the world as I find it,
Mr. de la Molle."

"Quite so, Quest; quite so," answered the Squire quietly. "I had no
idea that you looked at these matters in such a light. Certainly the
world has changed a good deal since I was a young man, and I do not
think it has changed much for the better. But you will want your
luncheon; it is hungry work talking about foreclosures." Mr. Quest had