to know, and yet she was afraid to ask,
for her heart revolted against asking questions of Jock which might
betray to him the fear of a possible quarrel. After she had
superintended little Tom's toilet, and watched him go out for his walk
(for the weather was very mild for the time of the year), and seen Mrs.
Freshwater, the housekeeper, and settled about the dinner, always with a
little quiver of anxiety in her heart, she met Jock by a happy chance,
just as she was about to join Lady Randolph in the drawing-room. She
seized his arm with energy, and drew him within the door of the library;
but after she had done this with an eagerness not to be disguised, Lucy
suddenly remembered all that it was inexpedient for her to betray to
Jock. Accordingly she stopped short, as it were, on the threshold, and
instead of saying as she had intended, "What did he say to you?" dropped
down into the routine question, "Where are you going--were you going
out?"

"I shall some time, I suppose. What do you grip a fellow's arm for like
that? and then when I thought you had something important to say to me,
only asking am I going out?"

"Yes, clear," said Lucy, recovering herself with an effort. "You don't
take enough exercise. I wish you would not be always among the books."

"Stuff, Lucy!" said Jock.

"I am sure Tom thinks the same. He was telling me--now didn't he say
something to you about it last night?"

"That's all bosh," said the boy. "And if you want to know what he said
to me last night, he just said nothing at all, but told me old stories
of school that I've heard a hundred times. These old d---- fellows,"
(Jock did not swear; he was going to say duffers, that was all) "always
talk like that. One would think they had not had much fun in their life
when they are always turning back upon school," Jock added, with fine
sarcasm.

"Oh, only stories about school!" said Lucy with extreme relief. But the
next moment she was not quite so sure that she was comfortable about
this entire ignoring of a matter which Sir Tom had seemed to think so
grave. "What sort of stories?" she said dreamily, pursuing her own
thoughts without much attention to the answer.

"Oh, that old stuff about Ascot and about the old master that stopped
them. It isn't much. I know it," said Jock, disrespectfully, "as well as
I know my a, b, c."

"It is very rude of you to say so, Jock."

"Perhaps it is rude," the boy replied, with candour; but he did not
fur