"I shall always be able to maintain my wife and children, if any."
"I pray you may, dear; but certainly this money has so far assisted you, as you have expended comparatively little on us."
"I am quite aware of the assistance your fortune has been to me, Mrs. Chepstowe."
"Paul!"
"But with all due deference to your father's, your uncle's, and your own united wisdom, I can not help feeling that it is a painful thing to be trammeled in my endeavors to assist my children; I am in an inferior position."
"My dear love, how can you say such cruel things?"
"Why do you bring them home to me, Barbara? Put yourself in my place. I can at this moment double your pittance; but you, my wife, are afraid to trust me with your property; you have no confidence in my judgment, and our children are the sufferers: I repeat it, this is galling."
"Indeed, Paul, you wrong me, and my father also. We freely gave up to your control my share in his property; have we ever sought to advise you even with respect to that? But my uncle wished his legacy to be settled on me with a reversion to the children, and I can not think that we have a right to risk it. The best intentions can not justify us, for the money is not entirely ours. Suppose, love, this proposed investment should not answer."
"Nonsense, Barbara, I tell you it can not fail; the concern is as good as the bank, and the returns will be enormous; if you doubt my word, see Jackson, he will satisfy your scruples; but once you placed entire faith in me."
"And do now, dear Paul; but before my marriage I promised dear father I would preserve this property for my children, according to the deed of settlement. Now do not look so angrily at me; I repeated this promise on his death-bed, for he foresaw this trial, he knew what pain I should suffer; but a promise is a sacred thing. Paul, that money can not, must not be touched."