I wonder what his only son will say to that," added Mr.
Tulliver, looking very curiously at Percival Nowell, "supposing him to be alive?
Rather hard upon him, isn't it ?" "Uncommonly," the other answered coolly.

He saw that the shopman suspected his identity, though he had carefully avoided all reference to the relationship between himself and the old man in Luke Tulliver's presence, and had begged his father to say nothing about him.
"I should like to see this young lady before I go up to Mr.Nowell's room," he said presently.

"Will you step upstairs and ask her to come down to me ?" "I can go if you wish, but I don't suppose she'll leave the old gentleman." "Never mind what you suppose.

Tell her that I wish to say a few words to her upon particular business." Luke Tulliver departed upon his errand, while Percival Nowell went into the parlour, and seated himself before the dull neglected fire in the lumbering old arm-chair in which his father had sat through the long lonely evenings for so many years.

Mr.Nowell the younger was not disturbed by any sentimental reflections upon this subject, however; he was thinking of his father's will, and the wrong which was inflicted upon him thereby.
"To be cheated out of every sixpence by my own flesh and blood!" he muttered to himself.