"Yes, my lord," said Phyllis, rescuing her cushion full of needles from Truce, who was beside himself with delight at so much going on.
Tom stretched the tapestry over the top of the couch, and held it with a few tacks while he made sure the figure ran straight. Then he sat down on the floor and began tacking the covering on across the front.
"I've something to decide," he said, as well as he could with his mouth full of tacks. "I want advice."
"If we can give it, my dear, you shall have it," said Mrs. Wyndham.
"You know I am to graduate this summer—" Tom began.
"I advise you to do that, if that is what you have to decide," said Bab, saucily.
"Barbara, my dear, pray let Tom speak," said her mother.
"Yes, Miss Impudence, I intend to," said Tom. "But it is the question of the next step I must decide. I think I never told you—please give me the scissors, Jessamy—but I have an uncle, my father's only brother, who had a son my age, and who was left a widower with the boy when we were both about eight years old. My cousin died; it was a dreadful blow to his father, whose whole life was wrapped up in his child. My uncle has a considerable fortune, and he said, when poor Ralph died, I was to be his heir. He has sent me to college, and now he says that if I want to be a specialist, he'll send me to Germany to study in some of those famous schools and under their first-class scientists as long as I please. And I don't know what to tell him."
"Is it a question of being a specialist or a general practitioner?" asked Mrs. Wyndham. "You ought not to consult us; we aren't competent to advise. Besides, isn't it chiefly a matter of vocation?"