His pluck and energy had had its
reward, and for the past three years he had held a responsible and
well-paid position in a mercantile house. But his life and his work had
for him nothing but a passing interest; he had no sympathy with bonded
warehouses, invoices, and ledgers. All he could look forward to was a
higher position, a larger salary, and, when Miriam should graduate, a
little home somewhere where she could keep house for him. In his dreams
of this home, he would sometimes place it in the suburbs, where Sundays
and holidays spent in country air would compensate for hasty breakfasts,
early morning trains, and late ones in the afternoon. But when he
reflected that it would not do to leave his young sister alone all day in
a thinly settled, rural place, at the mercy of tramps, he was forced to
the conclusion that the thing for them to do was to live in a city
apartment. But there was nothing in either of these outlooks to create
fervent longings in the soul of Ralph Haverley.
For some legal reason, probably connected with the fact that old
Butterwood died at a health resort in Arkansas, Haverley did not learn
until late in the winter that his mother's uncle had left to him the
estate of Cobhurst.
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