"Why, what you say, Jane, is very true: these things did occur to me,
and they strongly disinclined me, at first, from your brother's proposals;
but, I don't know how it was, he made out the thing to be so very
advantageous; the success of it so infallible; and his own wants were so
numerous that my whole income was insufficient to supply them; the Lord
knows how it has happened. In my time, I could live upon a little. Even
with a wife and family, my needs did not require a fourth of the sum that
Frank, without wife or child, contrives to spend; yet I can't object
neither. He makes it out that he spends no more than his rank in life, as
he calls it, indispensably requires. Rather than encroach upon my funds,
and the prospects of success being so very flattering, and Frank so very
urgent and so very sanguine, whose own interest it is to be sure of his
footing, I even, at last, consented."

"But I hope, dear sir, your prudence provided in some degree against
the possibility of failure. No doubt you reserved something which might
serve as a stay to your old age in case this hopeful project miscarried.
Absolutely to hazard _all_ on the faith of any project whatever was
unworthy of one of your experience and discretion."

My father, Henry, was a good man,--humane, affectionate, kind, and of
strict integrity; but I scarcely need to add, after what I have already
related, that his understanding was far from being vigorous, or his temper
firm. His foibles, indeed, acquired strength as he advanced in years,
while his kindness and benevolence remained undiminished.

His acquiescence in my brother's schemes can hardly be ranked with
follies: you, who know what scheme it was, who know the intoxicating
influence of a specious project, and, especially, the wonderful address
and plausibility of Catling, the adventurer who was my brother's prime