CHAPTER XII
THE END
What a triumph for little lame Dickie of Deptford!
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You think, perhaps, that he was happy as well as proud, for proud he certainly was, with those words and those cheers ringing in his ears. He had just done the best he could, and tried to help Beale and the dogs, and the man who had thought himself to be Lord Arden had said, "I am proud that he should be the head of our house," and all the Arden folk had cheered. It was worth having lived for.
The unselfish kindness and affection of the man he had displaced, the love of his little cousins, the devotion of Beale, the fact that he was Lord of Arden, and would soon be lord of all the old acres—the knowledge that now he would learn all he chose to learn and hold in his hand some day the destinies of these village folk, all loyal to the name of Arden, the thought of all that he could be and do—all these things, you think, should have made him happy.
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