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Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
page 12 of 453 (02%)
to be married for her money; and, at any rate, that deed makes you
master of the Reigate estates for the next thirteen years; so the
only thing that I really want of you is to let the girl be called
your ward instead of your niece, and that she and everyone else
shall be in ignorance that she is an heiress. So far from doing
the girl a wrong, you will be doing her a benefit; and as I have
explained the whole matter to our lawyers, no one can possibly think
that the thing has been done from any motive whatever except that
of affording me satisfaction."

"I will think the matter over," John repeated. "Of course, brother,
it has been in your mind for some time, but it comes altogether
fresh to me, and I must look at it in every light. For myself,
I have no wish at all to become master of our father's estate. I
have been going in one groove for the last twenty years, and don't
care about changing it. You wished me to do so ten years ago, and
I declined then, and the ten years have not made me more desirous
of change than I was before."

"All right; think it over. Please send Ramoo in to me; I have tired
myself in talking."

John Thorndyke smoked many churchwarden pipes in the little arbor
in his garden that day. In the afternoon his brother was so weak
and tired that the subject of the conversation was not reverted
to. At eight o'clock the Colonel went off to bed. The next morning,
after breakfast, he was brighter again.

"Well, John, what has come of your thinking?" he asked.

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