He began to murmur inwardly that the entire fortune did not lie at his disposal; willingly he would have allowed Alice a handsome portion; and as for 'Arry, the inheritance was clearly going to be his ruin.

The practical difficulties at New Wanley were proving considerable; the affair was viewed with hostility by ironmasters in general, and the results of such hostility were felt.

But Richard was committed to his scheme; all his ambitions based themselves thereupon.

And those ambitions grew daily.
These greater troubles must to a certain extent solve themselves, but in Highbury it was evidently time, as Alice said, to 'do something.' His mother's obstinacy stood in the way of almost every scheme that suggested itself.

Richard was losing patience with the poor old woman, and suffered the more from his irritation because he would so gladly have behaved to her with filial kindness.