"Let me ring for candles, uncle."

"No; I'm going."

She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair. The agile old man
bounded away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he
would consent to be seated. The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made
tea, and filled a cup for him. Anthony began to enjoy the repose of the
room. But it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his
bosom. Fretting--on his chair, he cried: "Well! well! what's to talk
about? We can't drink tea and not talk!"

Rhoda deliberated, and then said: "Uncle, I think you have always loved
me."

It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her. He caught at the
idea.

"So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have. I do."

"You do love me, dear uncle!"

"Now I come to think of it, Rhoda--my Dody, I don't think ever I've loved
anybody else. Never loved e'er a young woman in my life. As a young
man."

"Tell me, uncle; are you not very rich?"

"No, I ain't; not 'very'; not at all."