Don't you know that Minnie Fay is a niece of Sir Gilbert
Biggs?"
"By Jove! So she is. I remember being startled when you told me that,
and for a moment an odd fancy came to me. I wondered whether your
child-angel might not be the identical being about whom my poor dear
mother went into such raptures. Good Lord! what a joke! By Jove!"
"A joke!" growled Dacres. "I don't see any joke in it. I remember when
you said that Biggs's nieces were at the bottom of your troubles, I
asked whether it might be this one."
"So you did, old chap; and I replied that I hoped not. So you need not
shake your gory locks at me, my boy."
"But I don't like the looks of it."
"Neither do I."
"Yes, but you see it looks as though she had been already set apart
for you especially."
"And pray, old man, what difference can that make, when I don't set
myself apart for any thing of the kind?"
Dacres sat in silence with a gloomy frown over his brow.
"Besides, are you aware, my boy, of the solemn fact that Biggs's
nieces are legion?" said Hawbury. "The man himself is an infernal old
bloke; and as to his nieces--heavens and earth!--old! old as
Methuselah; and as to this one, she must be a grandniece--a second
generation. She's not a true, full-blooded niece. Now the lady I refer
to was one of the original Biggs's nieces. There's no mistake whatever
about that, for I have it in black and white, under my mother's own
hand."
"Oh, she would select the best of them for you.
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