“I have lived there for the last few months.”
“Why did you come East?”
“On a little business.”
“I am glad you are well off. I think pa was afraid you were a poor relation.”
“Your father is rich?”
“Yes, ever so rich. We’ve got a fine place near Elmira. If pa wasn’t so cranky I would invite you there to visit me.”
“Thank you all the same,” said Ernest, smiling.
Later in the evening, when Stephen Ray came in, Ernest noticed that he looked at him critically. He, too, examined the man who, he had reason to believe, was enjoying the estates that should be his, and was not attracted toward him.
“What will he say,” thought Ernest, “when I make a formal demand for the property?”
“What in the name of all that’s unlucky can have brought that boy here at this time?” Stephen Ray was saying to himself.