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treet, 'that I do not want to go counter to my father if I can help it. I have not been able to avoid vexing him, and this is of no great consequence. I can exchange, if it should not suit me.'
'I believe you are right,' said the Curate; 'but I will inquire and write to you before the application is made. Wait, and I will send out Lance. But ought you not to call at the Rectory?'
'I will do so as I return,' said Ferdinand; and as Mr. Audley entered the house, he thought that the making the Cacique into an English gentleman seemed to have been attained as far as accent, mind, and manner went, and the air and gesture had always been natural in him. His tone rather than his words were conclusive to the Curate that his heart had never swerved from the purpose with which he had stood at the Font; but the languor and indolence of the voice indicated that the tropical indifference was far from conquered, and it was an anxious question whether the life destined for him might not be exceptionally perilous to his peculiar temperament of nonchalance and excitability.
Consideration was not possible just then, for when Mr. Audley opened the door, he found that he had been impatiently waited for, and barely time was allowed to him to send Lance to Ferdinand Travis, before he was summoned to immediate conference with Thomas Underwood, who, on coming in, had assumed the management of affairs, and on calling for the will, was rather displeased with Felix's protest against doing anything without Mr. Audley, whom he knew to have been named guardian by his father. The cousin seemed unable to credit the statement; and Wilmet had just found the long envelope with the black seal, exactly as it had lain in the desk, which had never been disturbed since the business on their father's death had been finished.
There was the old will made long before, leaving whatever there was to leave unconditionally to the wife, with the sole guardianship of the children; and there was the codicil dated the 16th of October