II] . THE SILVER FAIRIES. 139

 

out being able to decide what course would be most
likely to promote their happiness. Dolly suggested
that her grandfather might keep a shop—a large shop
with beautiful plate glass windows and occupying
some good position in the town. He might employ
himself with the accounts and general management of
the business, whilst she and Martha Pattison could
serve the customers, which they would be able to do
better than the proprietor himself. It might be a
haberdasher’s shop, or even a milliner’s and dress-
maker’s, for they would have plenty of money to hire
attendants who understood the business, and there
would be a great deal of amusement to be got out of it.

Martha Pattison, however, saw things in a different
light. What was the use of troubling to keep a shop,
she wisely remarked, if, as was the case with Simon,
you had got money enough to live without it? Better
by half hire a nice house in a fashionable part of the
town, and take lodgers, which was a genteel as well
as fashionable occupation. She, Martha, could man-
age the cooking, Dolly could look after the house, and
as for Simon he could amuse himself in any way he
liked.

This plan, however, did not commend itself to
the old milkman any more than the other, and he
already began to experience the difficulty of having
more money than he knew what to do with, which is
a difficulty in which no one believes who has not had
the opportunity of trying it. So the three good people
talked matters over during the whole of breakfast-
time without coming to any’conclusion, until at last a
bright thought dawned upon the master of the house-