Page:Garman and Worse.djvu/271

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Garman and Worse.
269

position was. Worse answered her in a calm and measured business tone.

"Well, then, this money," said she, one day, in Worse's office, "is my own, and is entirely under my own control?"

"Yes, in addition to your share in the business," added Worse, in explanation; "and if your mother should die, your part of her property will come to you at the division which will follow. It will then depend upon you or your future husband——"

"My future husband will surely allow me to manage my own property," said Rachel.

"It is to be hoped he will; but, as you perhaps know, in the event of your marrying, you will lose the entire control."

"Then I will never marry!"

"I am of opinion myself that you might do something better than marriage," said Jacob Worse.

Rachel observed him closely, but failed to fathom his thoughts.

"How I envy you your clear intelligent head!" said she, somewhat scornfully. "You lay out for yourself some plan or another in life, and then your object is forthwith accomplished. You quietly follow your plans, and in the same way you expect that those to whom you give your advice, will follow it without wavering. You are just like father. You really are too precise."

"I regard that as the greatest compliment I have ever received," answered Worse, smiling.

"But father was in many respects an old-fashioned