"Yes: so wags the world," thought Pen. "The stone closes over Harry
the Fourth, and Harry the Fifth reigns in his stead. The old ministers
at the brewery come and kneel before him with their books; the
draymen, his subjects, fling up their red caps, and shout for him.
What a grave deference and sympathy the bankers and the lawyers show!
There was too great a stake at issue between those two that they
should ever love each other very cordially. As long as one man keeps
another out of twenty thousand a year, the younger must be always
hankering after the crown, and the wish must be the father to the
thought of possession. Thank Heaven, there was no thought of money
between me and our dear mother, Laura."
"There never could have been. You would have spurned it!" cried Laura.
"Why make yourself more selfish than you are, Pen; and allow your mind
to own for an instant that it would have entertained such--such
dreadful meanness? You make me blush for you, Arthur; you make me--"
her eyes finished this sentence, and she passed her handkerchief
across them.
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