Now Emily Leonard and her descendants
are the only heirs missing. This man says that the child, Mary, is Emily
Leonard's grandchild and that Emily and her son, the child's father, are
dead. That would mean that if we wanted to sell that land we'd be
obliged to have the signatures of my sisters and my nephew, Stanley, and
myself, and also of the guardian of this child. Of course Hapgood will
say he's the child's guardian. Do you suppose, Mrs. Smith, that he's
going to sign any deed that gives you that land? Not much! He'll say
it's for the child's best interests that the land be not sold now,
because it contains valuable clay or whatever it is he thinks he has
found there. Then he'll offer to buy the land himself and he'll be
willing enough to sign the deed then."
"But _we_ might not be," interposed Miss Maria.
"I should say not," returned her brother emphatically, "but he'd
probably make a lot of trouble for us and be constantly appealing to us
on the ground that we ought to sell the land for the child's good--or he
might even say for Stanley's good or our good, the brazen, persistent
animal."
"Brother," remonstrated Miss Maria. "You forget that you may be speaking
of the uncle of our little cousin."
"Little cousin nothing!" retorted Mr. Clark fiercely. "It's all very
nice for the Mortons to find that that charming girl who takes care of
the Belgian baby is a relative.
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