“The doctor's ministry goes no further,” said Beattie, gently.
“Your art is then but left-handed, sir. Where 's Haire?”
“Here, at your side,” replied Haire.
“I must finish my story, Haire. Where was it that I left off? Yes; to be sure,—I remember now. This boy of Sewell's—Reginald Victor Sewell—was, with my permission, to take the name of Lendrick, and be called Reginald Victor Sewell Lendrick.”
“And become the head of your house?”
“The head of my house, and my heir. She did not say so, but she could not mean anything short of it.”
“What has your son done to deserve this?” asked Haire, bluntly.
“My son's rights, sir, extend but to the modest fortune I inherited from my father. Whatever other property I possess has been acquired by my own ability and labor, and is mine to dispose of.”
“I suppose there are other rights as well as those of the statute-book?”
“Listen to this, Beattie,” cried the old Judge, with a sparkle of the eye,—“listen to this dialectician, who discourses to me on the import of a word. It is not generous I must say, to come down with all the vigor of his bright, unburdened faculties upon a poor, weak, and suffering object like myself. You might have waited, Haire, till I had at least the semblance of power to resist you.”