"
"He was very rich?"
"Horribly rich, I have always heard."
"Won't he leave you something? It would be very nice now that you are
engaged to find that he has given you five thousand pounds."
"Very nice indeed;--but there is not a chance of it. It has always
been known that everything is to go to the heir. Papa had his fortune
and spent it. He and his brother were never friends, and though the
Duke did once give me a kiss I imagine that he forgot my existence
immediately afterwards."
"So the Duke of Omnium is dead," said Lord Chiltern when he came home
that evening.
"Adelaide has had a letter to tell her so this afternoon."
"Mr. Fothergill wrote to me," said Adelaide;--"the man who is so
wicked about the foxes."
"I don't care a straw about Mr. Fothergill; and now my mouth is
closed against your uncle. But it's quite frightful to think that a
Duke of Omnium must die like anybody else."
"The Duke is dead;--long live the Duke," said Lady Chiltern. "I
wonder how Mr. Palliser will like it."
"Men always do like it, I suppose," said Adelaide.
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