say
when he should be back. They had told Miss Langton, and she said,
"Perhaps Mr. Henry--"

Mr. Henry was off like a shot. He found Sissy on her horse at the door,
looking pensively along the street, as if she were studying the effect
of dusky red on palest blue--chimney-pots against the April sky.

"So Mr. Hardwicke is out?" she said when they had shaken hands. "I'm so
sorry! I wanted him so particularly."

"Is it important? Are you in a great hurry?" said Henry. "He won't be
long, or he would certainly have left word--on a market-day especially.
Could you come in and wait a little while?" he suggested. "I suppose I
shouldn't do as well?"

"I don't know," said Sissy, looking a little doubtfully at the tall,
fresh-colored young fellow, who smiled frankly in reply.

"Oh, it isn't at all likely," said Mr. Henry with delightful candor.
"The governor can't, for the life of him, understand how I make so many
blunders. I've a special talent that way, I suppose, but I don't know
how I came by it."

"Then perhaps it had better be Mr. Hardwicke. If it were a waltz,
now--" and she laughed. "But it isn't a waltz: it is something very
important. Do you know anything about wills?"

He looked up in sudden apprehension: "Is it about a will? Mrs.
Middleton's? Is anything the matter?"

"No, it isn't Aunt Middleton's: it's mine," was the composed reply. But
seeing relief, and almost amusement, on his face, she added hastily, "I
_can_ make a will, can't I? I'm twenty-one, you know: it's my birthday
to-day."

"Then I wish you many happy returns of the day."

"Thank you, but can I make a will?"

"Of course you can make a will."

"A will that will be good?" Sissy insisted, still speaking in the low
tone she had adopted when she began to explain the object of her visit.
"Can I make it here and now?"

"Not on horseback, I think," said Hardwicke with a smile. "You would be
tired of sitting here while we took down all your instructions. It isn't
very quick work making ladies' wills. They generally leave no end of
legacies. I suppose they are so good they don't forget anybody."

"Mine won't be like that: mine will be very short," Sissy said. "And I
suppose I am not good, for I shall forget almost everybody in it." She
laughed as she said it, yet something in her voice struck Hardwicke as
curiously earnest. "I will come in, I think, and tell you about it," she
went on. "I want to make it to-day."

"To-day?" he repeated as he