“What, my love, is the bearing of your remark?”
“That you have been too liberal in arrangements for me—I mean, with regard to property; and that makes me unhappy.”
“How so? I have none but comparatively distant connections.”
“I have been led to think about your aunt Julia, and how she was left in poverty only because she married a poor man, an act which was not disgraceful, since he was not unworthy. It was on that ground, I know, that you educated Mr. Ladislaw and provided for his mother.”
Dorothea waited a few moments for some answer that would help her onward. None came, and her next words seemed the more forcible to her, falling clear upon the dark silence.
“But surely we should regard his claim as a much greater one, even to the half of that property which I know that you have de
