"Never mind, dear," said Josiah, looking at her with love in his sombre eyes. "What we're doing: it's all for you."
"All for me? How?"
He explained to her that whereas Josiah Spencer & Son had always been a firm, it was now being changed to a corporation.
"As long as there was a son," he said, "the partnership arrangement was all right. But the way things are now—Well, when I'm gone, Mary, you'll own the stock of the company, and draw your dividends, and have no responsibilities to bother you."
"But who'll run the factory?"
"I suppose Stanley will, as long as he lives. You'll be the owner, of course, but I don't think you'll ever find anybody to beat Uncle Stanley as a general manager."
"And when Uncle Stanley dies—what then?"
"I think you'll find his son Burdon the next best man."
Mary felt her heart grow heavy. It may have been presentiment, or it may have been the thought of her father's possible death.
"Don't let's talk any more about dying," she said. "But tell me: Is that why you are making so many additions to the factory—because we are changing to a corporation?"