‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose?’
‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss Murdstone, striking in, ‘his character, I trust, would have been altogether different.’
‘Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have gone into the respectable business, would he?’ said my aunt.
‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head, ‘that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister Jane Murdstone were agreed was for the best.’
Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur.
‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’
Mr. d**k, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt
