em
that, they would think it awful luck."

"I wish I could give them all of it, and be done with it!"

"I don't see much good that would do. It would be two rich people in
place of one, and the two would not be so grand as you. That would not
have done for father at all. He liked you to be a great heiress, and
everybody to wonder at you, and then to give your money away like a
queen. I like it too," said Jock, throwing up his head; "it satisfies
the imagination: it is a kind of a fairy tale."

Lucy shook her head.

"He never thought how hard it would be upon me. A woman is never so well
off as a man. Oh, if it had been you, Jock, and I only just your
sister."

"Talking does not bring us any nearer a settlement," said Jock, with
some impatience. "When will you do it, Lucy? Have you got to speak to
old Rushton, or write to old Chervil, or what? or can't you just draw
them a cheque? I suppose about ten thousand or so would be enough. And
it is as easy to do it at one time as another. Why not to-morrow, Lucy?
and then you would have it off your mind."

This proposal took away Lucy's breath. She thought with a gasp of Sir
Tom and the look with which he would regard her--the laugh, the amused
incredulity. He would not be unkind, and her right to do it was quite
well established and certain. But she shrank within herself when she
thought how he would look at her, and her heart jumped into her throat
as she realised that perhaps he might not laugh only. How could she
stand before him and carry her own war in opposition to his? Her whole
being trembled even with the idea of conflict. "Oh, Jock, it is not just
so easily managed as that," she said faltering; "there are several
things to think of. I will have to let the trustees know, and it must
all be calculated."

"There is not much need for calculation," said Jock, "that is just about
it. Five per cent is what you get for money. You had better send the
cheque for it, Lucy, and then let the old duffers know of it afterwards.
One would think you were afraid!"

"Oh, no," said Lucy, with a slight shiver, "I am not afraid." And then
she added, with growing hesitation, "I must--speak to---- Oh! Is it you,
Tom?" She made a sudden start from Jock's side, who was standing close
by her, argumentative and eager, and whose bewildered spectatorship of
her guilty surprise and embarrassment she was conscious of through all.

"Yes, it is I," said Sir Tom, putting his hand upon her s