"I have very little for the baronet, however," he replied; "and I hope
he will never die till I scald the soul in his body. Excuse me, Amby.
You know all the circumstances of the family, and, of course, that you
are the child of guilt and shame."
"Why, yes, I'm come on the wrong side as to birth, I admit; but if I
clutch the property and title, I'll thank heaven every day I live for my
mother's frailty."
"It was not frailty, you unfeeling boy," replied Ginty, "so much as my
father's credulity and ambition. I was once said to be beautiful, and
he, having taken it into his head that this man, when young, might love
me, went to the expense of having me well educated. He then threw me
perpetually into his society; but I was young and artless at the time,
and believed his solemn oaths and promises of marriage."
"And the greater villain he," observed her brother; "for I myself did
not think there could be danger in your intimacy, because you and he
were foster-children; and, except in his case, I never knew another
throughout the length and breadth of the country, where the obligation
of that tie was forgotten.
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