helped her to dismount.

"Yes. I'll tell you," said Sissy, entering his room, "and you'll tell
Mr. Hardwicke, won't you? I'll get the Elliotts to give me some
luncheon, and then I can come here again between two and three. I shall
have to sign it, or something, sha'n't I? Do tell your father I want it
all to be finished to-day."

"I'll tell him."

"Tell him it's my birthday, so of course I must do just as I please and
have everything I want to-day. I don't know whether that's the law, but
I'm sure it ought to be."

"Of course it ought to be," Henry replied with fervor. "And I think we
can undertake to say that it shall be our law, anyhow."

"Thank you," said Sissy. "I shall be so very glad! And it can't take
long. I only want him to say that I wish all that I have to go to
Percival Thorne."

"To Percival?" Hardwicke repeated, with a sensation as if she had
suddenly stabbed him. "To Percival Thorne? Yes. Is that all I am to
say?"

"That's all. I want it all to be for Percival Thorne, to do just what he
likes with it. That can't take long, surely."

Hardwicke bit the end of a penholder that he had picked up, and looked
uneasily at her: "You're awfully anxious to get this done, Miss Langton:
you aren't ill, are you?"

"Oh, I'm well enough--much better than I was last year," said Sissy
lightly. "But there's no good in putting things of this sort off, you
know"--she dropped her voice--"as poor Mr. Thorne did. And your father
said once that if I didn't make a will when I came of age my money would
all go to Sir Charles Langton. He doesn't really want any more, I should
think, for they say he is very rich. And he is only a second cousin of
mine, and I have never seen him. It's funny, having so few relations,
isn't it?"

"Very," said Hardwicke.

"And some people have such a lot," said Sissy thoughtfully. "But I
always feel as if the Thornes were my relations."

"I suppose so. At any rate, I don't see that Sir Charles Langton has any
claim upon you." There was silence for a minute, Sissy drawing an
imaginary outline on Hardwicke's carpet with her riding-whip, he
following her every movement with his eyes.

"I shall have to sign both my Christian names, I suppose?" she said
abruptly.

"Have you two? I didn't know. What is the other?"

"Jane."

"Jane! I like that," said Henry. "Yes, sign them both."

"Thank you. I don't want to seem like an idiot to your father. I should
like it best if I could just write '