same light with my friend. My mother's fortune was indeed large and
permanent, but my claim to it was merely through her voluntary favour, of
which a thousand accidents might bereave me. As to my father's property,
Frank had taken care very early to suggest to him that I was amply
provided for in Mrs. Fielder's good graces, and that it was equitable to
bequeath the whole inheritance to him. This disposition, indeed, was not
made without my knowledge; but though I was sensible that I held of my
maternal friend but a very precarious tenure, that my character and
education were likely to secure a much wiser and more useful application
of money than my brother's habits, it was impossible for me openly to
object to this arrangement; so that, as things stood, though the world, in
estimating my merits, never forgot that my father was rich, and that Frank
and I were his only children, I had in reality no prospect of inheriting a
farthing from him.

Indeed, I always entertained a presentiment that I should one day be
poor, and have to rely for subsistence on my own labour. With this
persuasion, I frequently busied my thoughts in imagining the most
lucrative and decent means of employing my ingenuity, and directed my
inquiries to many things of little or no use but on the irksome
supposition that I should one day live by my own labour. But this is a
digression.

In answer to my friend's remarks, I observed that my father's property
was much less considerable than some people imagined; that time made no
accession to it; and that my brother's well-known habits were likely to
reduce it much below its present standard, long before it would come to a
division.

"There, Jane, you are mistaken," said my friend, "or rather you are