Breakfast over, Ralph said: "And now, dearest, I should like a little business talk with you, if you can spare the time. You know we have had so much lovemaking to do we have had no opportunity of talking together about our business."
"'Our business,'" thought Phebe, "that sounds nice."
"The fact is," said Ralph, when the breakfast table had been cleared and they were alone, "I want to enlarge the business. I want to throw this room into the shop, take the house next door, which is to let, and start a grocery trade, too. Then my idea is to have a horse and cart and go into the villages for orders--many of them are growing considerably, and I think I could work up a splendid connection. Later on I should try to sell the whole affair, and start somewhere different from this sleepy place."
"Somewhere different! I should never like to leave Hadley."
"Of course not, women are never ambitious."
"But I am very ambitious, and should like you to have a large business. How could you possibly leave all your public work here? and I could never leave Hadley while my poor old sick father lives."
"We'll not worry about that," said Ralph, fearing he had gone too far. "We need not discuss that for years. I am glad to hear you say you would like me to have a big business; but how, without more capital, am I going to manage it?"
"That certainly is a very difficult question."
There was silence for a minute, and then Ralph, evidently disappointed she had not said more, asked: "Can you not suggest anything?"
"No, I cannot; but if it is God's will He will show you how it can be done."
"God won't do for us what we can do for ourselves," he answered a little impatiently. "I hardly like mentioning it, but haven't you some money in the bank?"
"Three hundred pounds. It was my mother's money; and the interest has helped to buy my clothes, because father could not afford to give us much pocket-money."
"Couldn't I have that money? Of course, I shall give you pocket-money enough."
"You can have some of it, most certainly."
Ralph got up from his chair, went to the window, and then said slowly, "Yes, that will do."
"We will go and draw it out next week," said Phebe, "if you like."
"Yes; and of course you had better change the name, had you not? And it will seem more businesslike if you draw the whole of it and then put the half of it back in my name. It will be yours all the same."