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Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible mur-
mur.
‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’
Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time,
was rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary
to check him with a look, before saying:
‘The poor child’s annuity died with her?’
‘Died with her,’ replied Mr. Murdstone.
‘And there was no settlement of the little property - the
house and garden - the what’s-its-name Rookery without
any rooks in it - upon her boy?’
‘It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first hus-
band,’ Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up
with the greatest irascibility and impatience.
‘Good Lord, man, there’s no occasion to say that. Left to
her unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield look-
ing forward to any condition of any sort or kind, though it
stared him point-blank in the face! Of course it was left to
her unconditionally. But when she married again - when
she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in
short,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain - did no one put in a word
for the boy at that time?’
‘My late wife loved her second husband, ma’am,’ said Mr.
Murdstone, ‘and trusted implicitly in him.’
‘Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhap-
py, most unfortunate baby,’ returned my aunt, shaking her
head at him. ‘That’s what she was. And now, what have you
got to say next?’
‘Merely this, Miss Trotwood,’ he returned. ‘I am here to