"Why not?" said Ralph the heir.
"Well; I don't know. Of course it's best. You wrote to Carey, you know."
"Yes; I wrote the very moment I had made up my mind."
"You had made up your mind, then?"
Ralph had certainly made up his mind when he wrote the letter of which they were speaking, but he was by no means sure but that his mind was not made up now in another direction. Since he had become so closely intimate with Mr. Neefit, and since Polly had so clearly explained to him her ideas as to paternal duty, his mind had veered round many points. "Yes," said he. "I had made up my mind."
"I don't suppose it can be of any use for you and me to be bargaining together," said the other Ralph.
"Not in the least."
"Of course it's a great thing to be heir to Newton. It's a nice property, and all that. Only my father thought—"
"He thought that I wanted money," said Ralph the heir.
"Just that."