"No; I hate them."
Another long pause. Then the boy suddenly turned questioner.
"You know Aunt—Miss Merrick, sir?"
"I used to, when we were both younger."
"Any relation, sir?"
"Just a brother, that's all."
Kenneth stopped short, and the mare stopped, and the little man, with a whimsical smile at the boy's astonishment, also stopped.
"I didn't know she had a brother, sir—that is, living."
"She had two; but Will's dead, years ago, I'm told. I'm the other."
"John Merrick?"