[CHAPTER X—LLEWELLYN’S GIFT.]
Late that evening there came a knock at Llewellyn’s door. He called out, “Come in!” and his sister Leslie entered. She shut the door softly behind her.
“Mother is asleep,” she said; “and I think she has been crying—she sighs so heavily in her sleep; it is not like her. I would not wake her for the world; but I knew you would be up, Lew, and I felt that I must have a talk with you.”
“All right—that is, if you really wish it,” said Llewellyn, slightly stretching himself, and a frown coming between his brows. He had been bending over a volume of Plato’s “Republic,” and some sheets of manuscript, scribbled over as if in frantic haste, were scattered about the table. When Leslie approached he pushed the manuscript helter-skelter into a waste-paper basket and shut up the book.
“Why did you do that?” said Leslie; “why do you hide your real thoughts from me, Lew? Don’t you want me to know? We have always been more than ordinary brother and sister to each other. What is the matter with you?”
Still Llewellyn did not reply. He stood up and looked at his sister with as expressionless a face as he could possibly manage to assume.
“It is no use,” said Leslie. She went up to him now, raised herself on tiptoe, and kissed him on his cheek.
“You have done it, and it is noble of you, it is splendid of you; but why—why?”
“How can you ask me why?” he answered. “Can’t you guess?”
“I guess partly,” replied the girl; “you want to help mother. But surely you could help her much more effectually in the long run by doing what Mr. Parker wishes. It is such a chance, and it was put in your way, Lew; you didn’t go out of your way to seek it. Perhaps God meant you to accept it.”