"My 'next' are two women whom I don't know, my niece's children. She died thirty years ago."
"Perhaps you ought to know them."
"I know about them; I've kept the run; but I've held clear of family. They didn't need me, and I had no right to put it into their heads they did, unless I fully meant"—
He broke off.
"They're like everybody else, Wharne; neither better nor worse, I dare say; but the world is full of just such women. How do I know this money would be well in their hands—even for themselves?"
"Find out."
"One of 'em was brought up by an Oferr woman!"
The tone in which he commonized the name to a satiric general term, is not to be written down, and needed not to be interpreted.
"The other is well enough," he went on, "and contented enough. A doctor's widow, with a little property, a farm and two children,—her older ones died very young,—up in New Hampshire. I might spoil her; and the other,—well, you see as I said, I don't know."
"Find out," said Marmaduke Wharne, again.