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"But mind--don't ever hint that you got it from me. Don't mention me in
the matter at all, Washington."
"All right--I won't. Millions! Isn't it splendid! I mean to look
around for a building lot; a lot with fine ornamental shrubbery and all
that sort of thing. I will do it to-day. And I might as well see an
architect, too, and get him to go to work at a plan for a house. I don't
intend to spare and expense; I mean to have the noblest house that money
can build." Then after a pause--he did not notice Laura's smiles "Laura,
would you lay the main hall in encaustic tiles, or just in fancy patterns
of hard wood?"
Laura laughed a good old-fashioned laugh that had more of her former
natural self about it than any sound that had issued from her mouth in
many weeks. She said:
"You don't change, Washington. You still begin to squander a fortune
right and left the instant you hear of it in the distance; you never wait
till the foremost dollar of it arrives within a hundred miles of you,"
--and she kissed her brother good bye and left him weltering in his dreams,
so to speak.
He got up and walked the floor feverishly during two hours; and when he
sat down he had married Louise, built a house, reared a family, married
them off, spent upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars on mere
luxuries, and died worth twelve millions.
367
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