The Black Dog Once More Upon the Scene

Our good old hostess became attached to us. She virtually surrendered
the management of the household to my wife. She was old and quite
infirm; and was frequently confined for days to her chamber; which
must have been a solitary place enough before our coming. My wife
became a companion to her in these periods of painful seclusion,
and thus provided her with a luxury which had been long denied
her. Under these circumstances we had very much our own way. The
old lady had few associates, and these were generally very worthy
people. They soon became our associates also, and under the
influence of better feelings than had governed me for a long time
past, I now found myself in a condition of comfoft, cheerfulness,
and peace, which I fancied I had forfeited for ever.

Two weeks after our arrival, Kingsley took his departure for Texas,
on a visit. He proposed to be absent two months. His object, as
he had described it before, in some pleasant exaggerations, was
to select some favorable spots for purchase, which should combine
as nearly as possible the three prime requisites of salubrity,
fertility, and beauty. His object was to speculate; "and this was
to be done," he said, "at an early hour of the day." "The Spanish
proverb," he was wont to say, "which regulates the eating of oranges,
is not a bad rule to govern a man in making his speculations.
Speculations (oranges) are gold at morning, silver at noon, and
lead at night. It is your wise man," he added, "who buys and sells
early; your merely sensible man who does so at midday; while your
dunce, waiting for an increased appetite at evening, swallows
nothing but lead."