Then she built a house near the mine, and taking her old nurse,
Selina Sprotts, and Archibald McIntosh to live with her, sank a
shaft in the place indicated by the latter. She also engaged miners,
and gave McIntosh full control over the mine, while she herself kept
the books, paid the accounts, and proved herself to be a first-class
woman of business. She had now been working the mine for two years,
but as yet had not been fortunate enough to strike the lead. The
gutter, however, proved remunerative enough to keep the mine going,
pay all the men, and support Mrs Villiers herself, so she was quite
content to wait till fortune should smile on her, and the long-
looked-for Devil's Lead turned up. People who had heard of her
taking the land were astonished at first, and disposed to scoff, but
they soon begun to admire the plucky way in which she fought down
her ill-luck for the first year of her venture. All at once matters
changed; she made a lucky speculation in the share market, and the
Pactolus claim began to pay. Mrs Villiers became mixed up in mining
matters, and bought and sold on 'Change with such foresight and
promptitude of action that she soon began to make a lot of money.
Stockbrokers are not, as a rule, romantic, but one of the fraternity
was so struck with her persistent good fortune that he christened
her Madame Midas, after that Greek King whose touch turned
everything into gold.
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