She knew that if Alfred were a fool his mother was not--at least, not in the way she meant.

There had been no love lost between the ladies, so that Mrs.Dagon was disposed to criticise the other's conduct very closely.

She saw, therefore, that if Alfred Dinks were not rich--and it certainly was a question whether he were so really, or only in expectation from Mr.Burt--then also he might not be engaged to Hope Wayne.

But the story of his wealth and his engagement might very easily have been the _ruse_ by which the skillful Mrs.Dinks meant to conduct her campaign in New York.

In that case, what was more likely than that she should have improved Fanny's evident delusion in regard to her son, and, by suggesting to him an elopement, have secured for him the daughter of a merchant so universally reputed wealthy as Boniface Newt?
Mrs.Dagon was clever--so was Mrs.Dinks; and it is the homage that one clever person always pays to another to believe the other capable of every thing that occurs to himself.
In the matter of the marriage Mrs.Budlong Dinks had been defeated, but she was not dismayed.