to the boundlessness of money. Nevertheless, next morning he woke to fortune, as[Pg 59] though she had always shared his pillow. Even Mrs. Jericho was astonished at the equanimity with which her husband received the gifts of luck, as vouchsafed to him from discovered veins of platina; for no, not even to the partner of his bosom, had Jericho revealed his bosom’s wealth. Little, indeed, did Mrs. Jericho know the value of the heart that beat—did it really beat?—beside her. It was, in truth, the one great secret of his breast that Jericho held undiscovered from the nominal mistress of that region. [Pg 59] Fourteen days only has Solomon Jericho been new-made; that is, made of money; and wondrous in the new-made man is the new change! Once was he an easy, slipshod sort of fellow, with a high relish for a joke; or when the joke itself was not to be had, with anything that at a short notice could be supplied in its place. Frequently was it the painful duty of his wife to rebuke him for his humour; humour being, Mrs. Jericho would ever insist, beneath a gentleman. Now only fourteen days, and what an improvement! “Money has its duties, Mr. Jericho,” the wife observed; “duties that are above a joke.” And to her great satisfaction, she acknowledged that Jericho in his new dull dignity solemnly carried out her own conviction. She was almost delighted with the man; he was such an improvement upon himself. She confessed it to him.—“He had greatly improved: now he never laughed; he never joked; he never talked of people below his own station; he had given up buffoonery, and philanthropy, and vulgar notions of all kinds; and, really she must say it, he showed himself worthy of the good fortune that had fallen upon him. Moreover, she always knew—she always felt—a presentiment of what the mines would produce; hence she had borne the privations of former years without word, without a tear. She had always loved him; and it had often caused her a struggle to disguise her affection: nevertheless, she did not think she could love him as she did; and for this reason—she could not deny it—she had not believed in the moral dignity his wealth had developed in him. She would say it—she was proud of him!” [Pg 60] [Pg 60] “Lovely weather, madam,” says Basil Pennibacker, prancing up to the phaeton. “But, my dear lady, may I be permitted to ask your unprejudiced opinion of the dust?” “A slight drawback; very slight, my love,” says Mrs. Jericho, heroically. “But what a heavenly sky!”
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