Uncle Richard
Your mother? Surely, Richard, your mother never criticised me to you? She was much too fine a woman. Besides, I helped her in many ways you may know nothing about.
Richard
No, mother said nothing. She wouldn't have, anyhow—and as far as your helping her is concerned, I can only judge of that by results.
Uncle Richard
Results? What do you mean? I have no desire to catalogue the things I have done for one who was near to me, but—
Richard
That's all very well, uncle, and I have no criticism to make. What's over is over. But when you speak of my duty to you, I think of how mother died so young, and how I found out afterward her affairs were so difficult. I had no idea—she sacrificed herself for me so long that I took it for granted. But I think that you, as a business man, must have known.
Uncle Richard
You found that everything was mortgaged? Well, Richard, it pains me to recall these things. Your father, unfortunately, was a poor business man. As for the mortgage, Richard, I held that myself.