Worse; far worse! It would mean taking the sunshine out
of her old father's sky altogether, and painting it a grim, despairing
gray.
But he resolved not to submit without a struggle.
"Sir," said he, sternly--he always called his brother-in-law "sir" when
he was in a sarcastic or reproachful mood--"I've had an idea for some
time that you were plotting mischief. You haven't looked me straight in
the eye for a week, and you've twice been late to dinner. I will ask you
to explain to us, sir, the brutal suggestion you have just advanced."
Uncle John laughed. In the days when Major Doyle had thought him a poor
man and in need of a helping hand, the grizzled old Irishman had been as
tender toward him as a woman and studiously avoided any speech or
epithet that by chance might injure the feelings of his dead wife's
only brother. But the Major's invariable courtesy to the poor or
unfortunate was no longer in evidence when he found that John Merrick
was a multi-millionaire with a strongly defined habit of doing good to
others and striving in obscure and unconventional ways to make everybody
around him happy. His affection for the little man increased mightily,
but his respectful attitude promptly changed, and a chance to reprove or
discomfit his absurdly rich brother-in-law was one of his most
satisfactory diversions.
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