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 CHAPTER XVI.

AN INVITATION FROM A BROTHER.

has been remarked by an acute observer that the children of parents who do not love each other are seldom very strongly attached; and the natural bond between Anthony and Edith Derrick had been also weakened by the very great partiality which their grandfather had shown to his heir, and the equally strong partiality which Miss Derrick felt towards her niece. As the old gentleman had been the most important person in the household, Anthony had always had the advantage during his life-time; and now, on Mr. Derrick's death, he felt that he was still more indisputably the master. But the- old gentleman had been sufficiently liberal to Edith, and although Anthony had come in for all the landed estates unencumbered and improving, the personal property had been equally divided between his two daughters, one married and the other unmarried, and his young granddaughter Edith. His poor