''
``You are determined, then,'' said Hartley, ``on
this wild course?''
``I know my rights, and am determined to make
them available,'' answered the obstinate youth.
``Mr Richard Middlemas, I am sorry for you.''
``Mr Adam Hartley, I beg to know why I am
honoured by your sorrow.''
``I pity you,'' answered Hartley, ``both for the
obstinacy of selfishness, which can think of wealth
after the scene you saw last night, and for the idle
vision which leads you to believe that you can obtain
possession of it.''
``Selfish!'' cried Middlemas; ``why, I am a
dutiful son, labouring to clear the memory of a
calumniated mother---And am I a visionary?---
Why, it was to this hope that I awakened, when
old Mon
ada's letter to Gray, devoting me to perpetual
obscurity, first roused me to a sense of my
situation, and dispelled the dreams of my childhood.
Do you think that I would ever have submitted to
the drudgery which I shared with you, but that, by
doing so, I kept in view the only traces of these
unnatural parents, by means of which I proposed
to introduce myself to their notice, and, if necessary,
enforce the rights of a legitimate child? The
silence and death of Monada broke my plans, and
it was then only I reconciled myself to the thoughts
of India.
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