“Very well; for Mr. Wayne, then,” she said, flushing; “and, during my last interview with him, he said he regarded him as a young man of great ability and promise, and that he had intended, as soon as he was fitted for the bar, to make him a partner in his business. All this he was going to do for one whom you appear to hold in such contempt, and as soon as his time should expire, if he would accept it.”
“I do believe that Richard Forrester was born with a soft spot somewhere, after all,” began her father, impatiently.
“Yes, sir, and it was in his heart,” Edith interrupted, quietly, but with an ominous sparkle in her blue eyes.
She could not tamely listen even to her father if anything disparaging was said of her beloved Uncle Richard.
Mr. Dalton glanced at her as if resenting the interruption, and then continued:
“He was keen enough in business and in making money, but he has shown himself almost an imbecile about some other things during the forty years that he had lived.”
“Papa, do you forget that you are speaking of the dead?” Editha asked, in a low, constrained tone.
“No; but I have no patience with such foolishness as he has more than once been guilty of,” was the impatient reply.
“What has Uncle Richard done that is so very foolish? He told me on that last day that his life had not been all smooth. What has he done?” Editha asked, with evident anxiety.
“No matter—no matter,” Mr. Dalton said, hastily; then, as if anxious to change the subject, asked: “Is that all you were going to tell me?”