You can inspect them when you like, Arthur; now, if you please.' 'It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is completed.
Shall I proceed then ?' 'Why not ?' she said, in her frozen way.
'Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and our dealings have been progressively on the decline.

We have never shown much confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people to us; the track we have kept is not the track of the time; and we have been left far behind.

I need not dwell on this to you, mother.

You know it necessarily.' 'I know what you mean,' she answered, in a qualified tone.

'Even this old house in which we speak,' pursued her son, 'is an instance of what I say.