farm, near Dawlish in Devonshire, whither he retired with his wife and
two children, to live upon the best interest he could get for the rest
of his money, and the little produce he could raise from his land. The
two prospered so well together that, when he died, some fifteen years
after this period, and some five after his wife, he was enabled to
leave, to his eldest son, Ralph, three thousand pounds in cash, and
to his youngest son, Nicholas, one thousand and the farm, which was as
small a landed estate as one would desire to see.

These two brothers had been brought up together in a school at Exeter;
and, being accustomed to go home once a week, had often heard, from
their mother's lips, long accounts of their father's sufferings in his
days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle's importance in his days
of affluence: which recitals produced a very different impression on
the two: for, while the younger, who was of a timid and retiring
disposition, gleaned from thence nothing but forewarnings to shun the
great world and attach himself to the quiet routine of a country life,
Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-repeated tale the two great
morals that riches are the only true source of happiness and power, and
that it is lawful and just to compass their acquisition by all means
short of felony. 'And,' reasoned Ralph with himself, 'if no good came
of my uncle's money when he was alive, a great deal of good came of it
after he was dead, inasmuch as my father has got it now, and is saving
it up for me, which is a highly virtuous purpose; and, going back to the
old gentleman, good DID come of it to him too, for he had the pleasure
of thinking of it all his life long, and of being envied and courted
by all his family besides.' And Ralph always wound up these mental
soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing like
money.