only this I am sure of, that, with respect to selling Clover-hill, you
had best go slowly to work, and see what the sister is, before you trust
to the brother. It is not for my interest, I very well know, to advise
you against this scheme; because, if I wanted to make certain of your
not coming in for my uncle's legacy, I could not take a better way than
to urge you to follow your fancy. For, say that you lay out all you have
in the world on the building of this playhouse, and say that Barton's
as honest a man as yourself: observe, your playhouse cannot be built in
less than a couple of years, and the interest of your money must be dead
all that time; and pray how are you to bring yourself up, by the end of
the ten years? Consider, there are but seven years of the time to come."

Marvel gave his cousin hearty thanks for his disinterested advice, but
observed that actors and managers of playhouses were, of all men, they
who were most likely to grow rich in a trice; that they often cleared
many hundreds in one night for their benefits; that even, if he should
fail to hit the public taste himself, as an actor, he was sure at
least, if he married the charming Alicia, that she would be a source
of inexhaustible wealth. "Not," added he, "that I think of her in that
light; for my soul is as much superior to mercenary considerations as
her own."

"More, perhaps," said Wright; but seeing fire flash in his cousin's
eyes at this insinuation, he contented himself for the present with the
promise he had obtained, that nothing should be concluded till the end
of one week; that no mention should be made to Miss Barton, or her
brother, of his arrival in town; and that he should have free liberty to
make trial of the lady's truth and constancy, in any way he should think
proper. Back to his friend the milliner's he posted directly. Miss
Barton was gone out upon the race-ground in Captain Mowbray's curricle: