Sissy' and nothing else, as I do at
the end of my letters. When I see 'Cecilia Jane Langton' I feel inclined
to call out, 'This is none of I!' like the old woman."

She stood up to go: "You won't forget, will you?"

"No, I won't forget."

"Everything to Percival Thorne."

"Percival Thorne is an uncommonly lucky fellow," said the young man,
looking down.

Sissy stopped short, glanced at him and colored. In her anxiety she had
never considered the light in which the bequest might strike Henry
Hardwicke. In fact, she had not thought of him at all except as a
messenger. She was accustomed to take him for granted on any occasion.
She had known him all her life, and he was always, in her eyes, the big
friendly boy with whom she pulled crackers and played blindman's buff at
children's parties. She dreamed of no possible romance with Henry, and
did not imagine that he could have such a dream about her. He was as
harmless as a brother, without a brother's right to question and
criticise. It was precisely that feeling which had been at the root of
the friendliness which the Fordborough gossips took for a flirtation.
They could not have been more utterly mistaken. She liked Henry
Hardwicke--she knew that he was honest and honorable and good--but if
any one had said that he was a worthy young man, I believe she would
have assented. And that is the last adjective which a girl would apply
to her ideal.

Sissy's scheme had been in her mind through all the winter, but she had
always imagined herself stating her intentions in a business-like way to
old Mr. Hardwicke, who was a friend of the family. She had been so
thunder-struck when she found that he was out that she had taken Henry
into her confidence at a moment's warning. She dared not risk any delay.
It would be impossible to go home leaving Percival's future insecure.
Suppose she died that night--and she was struck with the fantastic
coincidence of Mr. Hardwicke's second absence at the critical
moment--suppose she felt herself dying, and knew that the only thing she
could have done for Percival was left undone! She could not face the
possibility of that agony. Indeed, she wondered how she had lived
through the long hours which had elapsed since the clock struck twelve
and the day began which made her twenty-one--not the girl Sissy any
longer, but the woman who held Percival's fortune in her hands. How
could she have gone away with her purpose unfulfilled?

When Henry said