“How long will it be before we are able to—to what you may call it?”
“Mount it?” said Uncle Richard, smiling sadly.
“Yes, uncle,” cried Tom. “You don’t know how I long to get it right, so that we can have a look at the moon.”
“It will be some time yet, my boy,” replied Uncle Richard with a sigh; and Tom felt startled, for it seemed to him as if the stern, decisive-looking countenance before him had grown older, and the lines in it more deeply-marked.
“Some time, uncle? Why, you said it was as good as finished.”
“Yes, my boy, but duty first and pleasure after. While I have been doing this little bit of business other things have crossed my mind. I shall go up to town again to-morrow.”
“To Uncle James’s?” said Tom, after a pause.
“For one thing, yes. It is painful, my boy, but I feel that I ought to go.”
Tom was silent. He stood there feeling that his uncle was behaving differently to him. For his words were cold and measured, and he did not speak in the light, pleasant way of a couple of days back. At the same time, it was not that there was a division between them, but as if Uncle Richard treated him like one who shared with him a sad secret. He was graver, and there was a confidential tone in his voice which made the boy feel that he had grown older all at once.
“Shall you want me to go with you, uncle?” said Tom at last.