He stooped and stretched out the powerful hand and arm, which when only half-grown had been giant-like in struggles with his tiny sister but she only laid her two hands on the paper, with just sufficient resistance to make it a matter of strength on his side. They were man and woman, and what availed his muscles against her will? It came to parley. ‘Now, Lucy, I have a right to think for you. As your brother, I cannot permit you to throw your substance to the dogs.’
‘As your sister, I cannot allow you to rest dishonoured.’
‘Not a whit more than any of your chosen friends. Every
man leaves debts at Oxford. The extortion is framed on a scale to be unpaid.’
‘Let it be! There shall be no stain on the name that once was my father’s, if there be on the whole world beside.’
‘Then,’ with some sulkiness, ‘you won’t be content without beggaring me of my trumpery twenty-five hundred as soon as I am of age?’
‘Not at all. Your child must live on that. Only one person can pay your debts without dishonouring you, and that is your elder sister.’
‘Elder donkey,’ was the ungrateful answer. ‘Why, what would become of you? You’d have to be beholden to Honor for the clothes on your back!’
‘I shall not go back to Honor; I shall earn my own livelihood.’
‘Lucilla, are you distracted, or is it your object to make me so?’