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Darkness and Daylight by Mary Jane Holmes
page 310 of 470 (65%)
the latter to his presence, he bade him sit down, himself
hesitating, stammering and blushing like a woman, as he tried to
speak of Edith. Victor might have helped him, but he would not, as
he sat, rather enjoying his master's confusion, until the latter
said, abruptly,

"Victor, how would you like to have a mistress here--a bona fide
one, I mean, such as my wife would be?"

"That depends something upon who it was," Victor exclaimed, as if
this were the first intimation he had received of it.

"What would you say to Edith?" Richard continued, and Victor
replied with well-feigned surprise, "Miss Hastings! You would not
ask that little girl to be your wife! Why you are twenty-five
years her senior."

"No, no, Victor, only twenty-one," and Richard's voice trembled,
for like Edith, he wished to be reassured and upheld even by his
inferiors.

He knew Victor disapproved, that he considered it a great
sacrifice on Edith's part, but for this he had no intention of
giving her up. On the contrary it made him a very little vexed
that his valet should presume to question his acts, and he said
with more asperity of manner than was usual for him,

"You think it unsuitable, I perceive, and perhaps it is, but if we
are satisfied, it is no one's else business, I think,"

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