“The will?” Sir Thomas had no fear to be thought inquisitive, his face was full of kindly interest and sympathy.
“Did I never tell you? that was all his thought. It was his amusement, as long--well, as long as Jock could remember. Don’t you recollect, Jock, how he would sit and write a little bit, and rub his hands, and read it to me when I came in? That is how I know so well all he wished me to do. He would put down his newspaper when something occurred to him, and write it down. It pleased him more than anything. Don’t you think it is a great pleasure, when any one is gone, to know exactly what they wished you to do?”
“It is a great bondage sometimes,” Sir Thomas said.
“I don’t think I shall feel it a bondage. But somehow going back is almost stranger than going away. The rooms at the Terrace will look small; and it will not be prettily furnished; and I shall not have Lady Randolph to talk to, nor the carriage, nor the visitors--”
“These things are easily got, even the visitors. As for Lady Randolph, perhaps you can put up with me instead. I am very fond of being talked to, and you know she recommended me as her substitute.”
“That is very true,” said Lucy, with her usual calm; “but then you are going to Scotland to shoot. You are only here on your way.”
“There is no saying, if you consult me a great deal, and give me a great many interesting subjects to think about how long I may linger on my way.”
“Oh, as for that!” said Lucy, “there is one thing--very interesting; but then I am not sure if I should tell it to any one, though it would be a great, a very great comfort. I tried to tell Lady Randolph once, and ask her--and I have wanted so much to tell you--to ask you--”
“Well, I am a sort of an uncle, you know; that was the relationship we decided upon,” Sir Thomas said.
Lucy did not say anything. She laughed, looking at him with a very winning confidence and trust in her eyes. They were quite unabashed in their modest gaze, conscious of no timidity, but there was a gentle affection in them which touched him. However, they were now drawing very near Farafield, and even her composed heart began to beat. She called Jock, very reluctant to be roused from his book, to look at the church-tower, the spire of the town hall, the big roofs of the market. “I don’t want to see them,” Jock said; all he wanted was his story. Perhaps it was _her_ story that made Lucy so animated, one not yet written in any book.