bare idea is an infamy. Your mother was as interested in
Raritan as--as----It's enough to make a mad dog blush. It was just a few
months before you were born----Bah! the imbecility of Erastus Varick
would unnerve a pirate. I know he was always running there, Raritan was,
but anyone with the brain of a wooden Indian would have
understood----Why, they were here--they came to me, all three of them,
and because I knew her father----And precious little thanks I got for my
pains. He said he would see the girl in her grave first. He would have
it that Raritan was after her for her money. It's true he hadn't a
penny--but--what's that got to do with it? The mischief's done. She must
have sent these letters to your mother to return to Raritan just before
she married that idiot Wainwaring. Your mother was her most intimate
friend--they were at school together at Pelham Priory. Raritan, I
suppose, was away. Before he got back, your mother--you were born, you
know, and she died. She had no chance to return them. That imbecile of a
father of yours must have found the letters, and thought----But how is
such a thing possible? Good God! he ought to be dug up and cowhided. And
it was for this he left you a Panama hat! And it was for this you have
turned over millions to an institution for the shelter of vice! It was
for this----See here, since Christ was crucified, a greater stupidity,
or one more iniquitous, has never been committed."

In the magnificence of his indignation, Mr. Van Norden stormed on until
he lacked the strength to continue. But he stormed to ravished and
indulgent ears. And when at last he did stop, Tristrem, who meanwhile
had been silent as a mouse, went over to the arm-chair into which, in
his exhaustion, he had thrown himself, and touched his shoulder.

"If he did not wish me to have the money," he said, "how could I keep
it? How could I?" And before the honesty that was in his face the old
man lowered his eyes to the ground. "I am gladder," Tristrem continued,
"to know myself his son than to be the possessor of all New York. But
when I thought that I was not his son, was that a reason why I should
cease to be a gentleman. Though I lost everything else, what did it
matter if I kept my self-respect?"

He waited a moment for an answer, and then a very singular thing
happened. From Dirck Van Norden's lowered eyes first one tear and then a
second rolled down into the furrows of his cheek. From his throat came a
sound