“Done with it?”
“Yes. Look here,” Wally put a thin forefinger on the letter. “Look what he says—‘Perhaps you will make some use of it that may interest you.’ Don’t you think that means something?”
“I believe it might,” Jim said cautiously. “But what?”
Wally hesitated.
“Well, he was just mad keen on the War,” he said. “He was always planning what he could do to help, since he couldn’t fight,—at least, since he thought he couldn’t,” the boy added with a sigh. “I wonder he hadn’t used it himself for something in connexion with the War.”
“He couldn’t—it’s let,” Jim put in quickly. “The lawyers wrote about it to Dad. It’s been let for a year, and the lease expires this month—they said O’Neill had refused to renew it. That rather looks as if he had meant to do something with it, doesn’t it?”
Wally nodded vigorously.
“I’ll bet he did. Now he’s left it to Norah to carry on. You see, they told us his own relations weren’t up to much. I expect he knew they wouldn’t make any use of it except for themselves. Why, it’s as clear as mud, Jim! O’Neill knew that Norah didn’t actually need the place, and that she and your father wanted to be near you and still help the war themselves. They didn’t like working in London—Norah’s too much of a kid, and your father says himself he’s not trained. Now they’ve got a perfectly ripping chance!”
“Oh, bless you, Wally!” said a thankful voice behind them.
The boys sprang to their feet. Behind them stood a tall girl with a sun-tanned face and straight grey eyes—eyes that bore marks of tears, of which Norah for once was unashamed. Her brown curls were tied back with a broad black ribbon. She was very slender—“skinny,” Norah would have said—but, despite that she was at what is known as “the awkward age,” no movement of Norah Linton’s was ever awkward. She moved with something of the unconcerned grace of a deer. In her blue serge coat and skirt she presented the well-groomed look that was part and parcel of her. She smiled at the two boys, a little tremulously.