Stevens.
"Now, Mr. Stevens," said he, drawing up a chair, "we will talk over this
matter dispassionately, and try and arrive at some amicable arrangement: be
kind enough to inform me what your claims are."
"Mr. Balch, _you_ are a gentleman," began Mr. Stevens, "and therefore I'm
willing to discuss the matter thoroughly with you. You'll find me disposed
to do a great deal for these children: but I wish it distinctly understood
at the beginning, that whatever I may give them, I bestow as a favour. I
concede nothing to them as a right, legally they have not the slightest
claim upon me; of that you, who are an excellent lawyer, must be well
aware."
"We won't discuss that point at present, Mr. Stevens. I believe you
intimated you would be kind enough to say upon what evidence you purposed
sustaining your claims?"
"Well, to come to the point, then," said Stevens; "the deceased Mr. Garie
was, as I before said, my first cousin. His father and my mother were
brother and sister. My mother married in opposition to her parents'
desires; they cut her off from the family, and for years there was no
communication between them. At my father's death, my mother made overtures
for a reconciliation, which were contemptuously rejected, at length she
died.
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