Faith. I don't know, but it's sure to be a lot.
Mrs. Crombie. Why?
Faith. Well, he's a bachelor and—and he's been mining in South America.
Mrs. Crombie. There are hundreds of bachelors in South America who are absolutely penniless—whether they mine or not.
Faith. You are horrid, mother. (Sniffs.) I did feel so happy, and I wanted you to be happy too.
Mrs. Crombie (with slight sarcasm). It was sweet of you, dear. I really can't work myself up to a high pitch of enthusiasm over an uncle who though apparently in the last throes of a virulent disease is well able to gallop backwards and forwards across the Atlantic gaily arranging to leave an extremely problematic fortune to an extremely scatter-brained young man.
Faith. Bobbie isn't scatter-brained.
Mrs. Crombie. The whole family is scatter-brained, and I expect the uncle's the worst of the lot—he wouldn't have been sent to South America otherwise.
Faith. He wasn't sent, he went.
Mrs. Crombie. How do you know? He probably did something disgraceful in his youth and had to leave the country. Just like my brother, your Uncle Percy. I'm certain there's a skeleton of some kind in this family—anyhow he's sure not to die when we want him to.