'Ay, it's from such I want you to guard her. I know how many sharks there are who would regard an unprotected girl like her as their lawful prey. She'll marry some day, I hope, and wisely. But it is in the interval she needs looking after.'
'How old is she?'
'Seventeen and a half, I think.'
'She looks her age—a remarkably calm and self-possessed young lady, I thought her to-day. And she has no idea of this, you say?'
'Positively none,' answered the old man, with something like a chuckle. 'Why, this very morning we spoke of what she would do when I'm away, but it doesn't seem to be worrying her much. I never saw a person, old or young, with greater powers of adapting themselves to any circumstances,—any circumstances, mind you,—so you needn't be exercised about her future deportment. She'll astonish you, I promise you that.'
'You really believe, then, that you won't get better?'
'I know I won't; a man knows these things in spite of himself,' was the calm reply.
The lawyer looked at him keenly, almost wonderingly. He did not know him intimately. Only within recent years had he been engaged to manage his monetary affairs, and only six months before had drawn up the will, which, it may be said, had considerably surprised him. Looking at him just then, he wondered whether there might not be depths undreamed of under the crust of the miser's soul.
'You are behaving very generously to this young-fellow Hepburn,' he said then, leaving his deeper thoughts unspoken. 'He may consider himself very fortunate. Such a windfall comes to few in a position like his.'
'Ay, ay. I daresay it depends on how you look at it,' responded the old man indifferently. 'Well, I'm tired, and there's no more to talk about. Everything is right and tight, is it? No possibility of a muddle at the end?'