“And this same heritage,—how do the chances look?”
“I shall want your power of penetration to say that. One day the old woman will take me aside and consult me about fifty things; and the next she'll say, 'Perhaps we'd better make no changes, Mark. Heaven knows what ideas they may have who 'll come after me.' She drives me half distracted with these capricious turns.”
“It is provoking, no doubt of it.”
“I 'd not care so much if I thought it was to fall to Bella; though, to be sure, no good-looking girl needs such a fortune as this. Do you know that the timber thrown down by the late gales is worth eight thousand pounds? and Harris the steward tells me it's not one fourth of what ought to be felled for the sake of the young wood.”
“And she has the whole and sole disposal of all this?”
“Every stick of it, and some six thousand acres besides!”
“I 'd marry her if I were you. I declare I would.”
“Nonsense! this is a little too absurd.”
“Amram married his aunt, and I never heard that she had such a dower; not to say that the relationship in the present case is only a myth.”
“Please to remember that she is about thirty years older than my mother.”