CHAPTER XI.
DELL-DELIGHT
It should have been an enchanting home to which Thurston Willcoxen
returned after his long sojourn in Europe. The place, Dell-Delight,
might once have deserved its euphonious and charming name; now, however,
its delightfulness was as purely traditional as the royal lineage
claimed by its owners.
Mr. Willcoxen was one of those whose god is Mammon. He had inherited
money, married a half-sister of Commodore Waugh for money, and made
money. Year by year, from youth to age, adding thousands to thousands,
acres to acres; until now, at the age of ninety-five, he was the master
of incalculable riches.
He had outlived his wife and their three children; and his nearest of
kin were Thurston Willcoxen, the son of his eldest son; Cloudesley
Mornington, the son of his eldest daughter, and poor Fanny Laurie, the
child of his youngest daughter.
Thurston and Fanny had each inherited a small property independent of
their grandfather.
But poor Cloudy had been left an orphan in the worst sense of the
word--destitute and dependent on the "cold charity of the world,"
or the colder and bitterer alms of unloving rich relatives.
The oldest and nearest kinsman and natural guardian of the boys--old Mr.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118