“I mean to manage her, if I can, for her own good, and for the good of her fellow-creatures,” cried Mrs. Stone, excited too. “Power, that is what I have always wanted. I know I can use it well, and Lucy is a good girl, good to the bottom of her heart. She will want to do good with her money; and money, money is power.”
Miss Southwood listened, but she did not share her sister’s enthusiasm. Her countenance fell into shades of disapproval and impatience. She shook her head.
“You were always so high-flown,” she said. “I never saw anything come of these heiresses. Manage her! you ought to know by this time girls are not such easy things to manage. But there is a much better thing you can do--marry her! and that will be good for her and us.”
Mrs. Stone looked at her sister with a smile which was somewhat supercilious.
“That is, of course, your first idea; and how, if I may ask, would such an expedient be good for us? if I thought of good for us--which is a thing that never entered my thoughts--”
“Because you have no family affection, Maria. I have always said it of you. You think of the girl more than of your own relations. How is it possible,” asked Miss Southwood, severely, “that you could have any hand in the disposal of an heiress and not think of Frank?”
Lucy went home a little impressed by what Mrs. Stone had said. It had never occurred to her before to think of anything but her father’s will and pleasure in the matter, or to suppose that she had anything to do but to acquiesce in his arrangements; but when the idea was put into her head, it commended itself to her reasonable mind. If he were, at least, to begin to do some of the things which he had by his will commanded her to do, what an ease and comfort it would be! and she could not but think that it would be a relief to himself, as well as for her, could he be made, as Mrs. Stone suggested, to see it in this way. In the first place, it would obviate on his part all necessity for dying, which, at present, was the initial requirement, the one thing needful, before any of his regulations could be carried out. Why should he die? She could not but perceive, as she thought over the whole subject dispassionately, according to her nature, that from his own point of view it would be a mistake if his life were prolonged. The whole scheme was based upon his death. So long as he did not die it was a mere imagination. And why should this be? far better to get over this fundamental necessity by changing the construction of his plan altogether, and begin to carry out his wishes himself. When they were sitting together in the afternoon, which was wet and dull, the idea took a stronger hold upon her, and it was when Mr. Trevor was actually writing down something new that had occurred to him, that her thoughts came the length of speech. She looked up from her knitting, and he stopped, with the pen in his hand, and, looking round upon her, listened with a smile to what Lucy might have to say.