'That is what I wish,' she said, turning her face, as he put back a little ring of hair behind her ear, so that her lips met his hand.
'But Lady Pierpoint? I am afraid, Sibyl, her husband left her very badly off.'
'I will write now,' said Sibyl, springing to her feet.
Crack rose too, and jumped on Mr. Loftus's knees, quietly pushing his hands off them with his strong nose, and accommodating his long, thin body by a few jerks into the groove which a masculine lap presents. Mr. Loftus did not want him, and it tired him to keep his knees together; but he knew there was a draught on the floor, and he allowed him to remain.
'How much shall I say? A thousand a year or fifteen hundred for her life?' asked Sibyl, dipping her pen in the ink. It was all one to her. She always gave freely of what cost her nothing—namely, money.
'It must not be too much, or she won't feel able to take it,' said Mr. Loftus, considering. 'And if it is an annuity, it does not help the children.' And he wondered how far he dared go.
And when, a few days later, Lady Pierpoint received a note from Sibyl, very delicately and affectionately expressed, and offering, in such a manner as to make refusal almost impossible, a sum of money more than sufficient to provide for both her daughters, she guessed immediately whose tact had dictated the letter.
'Sibyl would never have thought of it,' she said to herself, as she wrote a note of acceptance. 'It never crossed her mind when she left us, or even to offer to pay for Peggy's and Molly's bridesmaids' gowns, although she chose such expensive ones. And if it had occurred to her since, she would not have put it like that.'