He may design according to the probabilities which are apparent to him; he may exercise a keen judgment; he may bring long experience to bear upon the subject; he may calculate by all that the keenest and the justest observation has taught him, and he may combine by the powers of a well-regulated and long-exercised reason: but when he has done this, he has done all. The rest belongs to fate--which, in other words, is the will of God. The man who has well and thoughtfully watched the progress of events must know that there is not a straw so small that it may not throw down a giant in his course; and if Napoleon Bonaparte, the pampered child of undeserved success, did really say--which I do not believe--"I propose, and I dispose too," he had used to very little purpose the experience of a life.
Still, it must be admitted that Lady Fleetwood's plans were not always the best calculated: she took too much for granted; she had an enormous number of very frail ladders, with which she proposed to scale the high walls that opposed her, and which always broke down at the very first step she set upon them. In the present instance, however, she was disappointed, not at all by her own fault. She set out to see Mr. Scriven at an hour when, perhaps, during the last six or seven-and-twenty years, he would not have been found absent from his counting-house on any three lawful days. Nevertheless, Mr. Scriven was not there when she arrived in the city. The head clerk knew not where he had gone, nor when he would return, so there was no sending for him, no waiting for him; and all that Lady Fleetwood could do was to leave word that she very much wished to see him, if he could call upon her during the following morning. The head clerk promised to give him the message faithfully, and Lady Fleetwood went out. The next moment, however, she returned again, to say that she should be glad if he could call about eleven; then she returned again to add, that she would thank him to send for her down into the library; and a third time she returned to beg that he would not say to any one she had called to ask for him.
The head clerk knew Lady Fleetwood well, and very readily promised to deliver all her messages; but they did not get very accurately to Mr. Scriven's ears, notwithstanding; and on the following day the excellent lady, having got her niece Maria to go out earlier than usual, and given her servants due directions, sat in the library ready to receive her brother--in vain.
Eleven, a quarter past eleven, went by; and Lady Fleetwood, who was as impatient as a girl of eighteen, tripped lightly up to her own room, proposing to go out and call upon her brother, as he had not attended to her summons. The distance was not great; she knew the exact way he would come; she should either meet him as he came or catch him before he went into the city.
Poor Lady Fleetwood! she was rarely if ever destined to do what she intended to do. The servant opened the door for his mistress to pass out, with his hat and long cane, as was customary in those days, ready to follow. But, lo and behold! upon the step of the door, with hand ready stretched out to seize the knocker, appeared a little, neatly-dressed man, with a shrewd, intelligent countenance. Lady Fleetwood set him down at once for some tradesman, or some tradesman's shopman; and being, as I have shown, very careful and economical, she paused to make inquiries, saying--
"What do you want, my good man?"
"I wanted to speak a few words with Lady Fleetwood," said Mingy Bowes; for he it was, delivered from incarceration.
"My name is Lady Fleetwood," replied the lady, while Mingy took off his hat very reverently; "but you see I am going out just now, and therefore----"
"Ma'am, it's a matter of great importance," said the man, interrupting her: "it would be much better for you to hear what I've got to say at once."
"Well, what is it?" asked the old lady, somewhat impatiently.