“And Cole is right, Jacob: it is rest and change you want,” she remarked. “You are sure you do not need it? don’t tell me. A stitch in times saves nine, remember.”
“You know nothing about it, Mary Ann.”
“I know that you look thinner and thinner every time I see you. Be wise in time, brother.”
“Cole told me to go away to the seaside for a month. Why, what should I do, mooning for a whole month in a strange place by myself? I should be like a fish out of water.”
“Take your wife and the girls.”
“I dare say! They would only worry me with their fine doings. And look at the expense.”
“I will go with you if you like, Jacob, rather than you should go alone, though it would be an inconvenience to me. And pay my own expenses.”
“Mary Ann, I am not going at all; or thinking of it. It would be impossible for me to leave my business.”
Mrs. Cramp, turning over matters in her mind, determined to put the case plainly before him, and did so; telling him that it would be better to leave his business for a temporary period now, than to find shortly that he must leave it for ever. Jacob sat gazing out straight before him at the Malvern Hills, the chain of which lay against the sky in the distance.
“If you took my advice, brother, you would retire from business altogether. You have made enough to live without it, I suppose——”