A pang of remorse shot through Tom's heart. He came to her side and threw one arm round her, remembering how his mother's last charge had been to take care of Lucy, and how poorly he had done it after all. Lucy had taken care of him instead.
"Lucy, I'm a perfectly horrid boy," he said in a queer, quick way. "Don't you hate me?"
"Hate you? O Tom, I've nobody but you."
Her sunny head drooped a moment against his arm, and her tears fell without restraint. "I didn't mean to, Tom," she said at last, looking up with a faint smile, "but I couldn't help it. I feel dreadful to think of you going away."
"When I'm a man, Lucy," he said manfully, "what a perfectly stunning little home you and I shall have together. It won't be so long—why, I'm thirteen."
"Only about ten or twelve years," said Lucy, able to laugh now. "I shall be gray-haired long before that time."
"You! why, you'll be the same as you are at fifty. You are like mamma; she never grew any older-looking. You must write often, mind, Lucy, and tell me all about everything and everybody."
Lucy promised, and, feeling very sad again, rose to light the lamp in case she should break down. Aunt Hepsy was wonderfully kind that night—she could be kind sometimes if she liked—and, altogether, the evening passed pleasantly. Tom went to bed early, as they were to start by the morning train. Lucy followed almost immediately. About half-an-hour afterwards Aunt Hepsy went upstairs to put a forgotten article into Tom's trunk, and was arrested by sounds in Lucy's room. The door was a little ajar, and Aunt Hepsy peered in. Lucy was undressed and sitting at the window, her arms on the dressing-table, and her whole frame shaking with sobs. Once or twice Aunt Hepsy heard the word "Mamma." The passion of grief and longing in the girl's voice made something come into Aunt Hepsy's throat, and she slipped noiselessly downstairs.
"I don't feel easy in my mind, Josh," she said when she re-entered the kitchen. "I'm feared we've been rayther hard on Hetty's children. She never did us any harm."
"Did I say she did, Hepsy?" asked Uncle Josh, serenely puffing away at his pipe. "You was allus the worst at her and at the children. Ye put upon that Lucy in a perfectly awful way."