the thorn birds colleen mccullough

wicked old bitch!" said Mrs. Smith; though she liked the priest, she
was fonder by far of the Clearys. They had brought babies and
children into her life.
But Paddy shook his head. "No, Harry! I couldn't do that. The
property was hers, wasn't it? She was quite entitled to do what she
liked with it. If she wanted the Church to have it, she wanted the
Church to have it. I don't deny it's a bit of a disappointment, but I'm
just an ordinary sort of chap, so perhaps it's for the best. I don't
think I'd like the responsibility of owning a property the size of
Drogheda."
"You don't understand, Paddy!" the lawyer said in a slow, distinct
voice, as if he were explaining to a child. "It isn't just Drogheda I'm
talking about. Drogheda was the least part of what your sister had to
leave, believe me. She's a major shareholder in a hundred gilt-edged
companies, she owns steel factories and gold mines, she's Michar
Limited, with a ten-story office building all to herself in Sydney.
She was worth more than anyone in the whole of Australia! Funny,
she made me contact the Sydney directors of Michar Limited not
four weeks ago, to find out the exact extent of her assets. When she
died she was worth something over thirteen million pounds."
"Thirteen million pounds!" Paddy said it as one says the distance
from the earth to the sun, something totally incomprehensible. "That
settles it, Harry. I don't want the responsibility of that kind of
money." "It's no responsibility, Paddy! Don't you understand yet?
Money like that looks after itself! You'd have nothing to do with
cultivating or harvesting it; there are hundreds of people employed
simply to take care of it for you. Contest the will, Paddy, please! I'll