“Dear little Trotty Veck!” It had been his pet name for her as a child. Nora, for answer, bent her head, and kissed him.
“Father”—she broke out—“I’ve got my first job!”
He looked up enquiringly.
“Mr. Hurst”—she named her English Literature tutor, a fellow of Marmion—“has got it for me. I’ve been doing some Norman-French with him; and there’s a German professor has asked him to get part of a romance copied that’s in the Bodleian—the only manuscript. And Mr. Hurst says he’ll coach me—I can easily do it—and I shall get ten pounds!”
“Well done, Trotty Veck!” Ewen Hooper smiled at her affectionately. “But won’t it interfere with your work?”
“Not a bit. It will help it. Father!—I’m going to earn a lot before long. If it only didn’t take such a long time to grow up!” said Nora impatiently. “One ought to be as old as one feels—and I feel quite twenty-one!”
Ewen Hooper shook his head.
“That’s all wrong. One should be young—and taste being young, every moment, every day that one can. I wish I’d done it—now that I’m getting old.”
“You’re not old!” cried Nora. “You’re not, father! You’re not to say it!”
And kneeling down by him, she laid her cheek against his shoulder, and put one of his long gaunt hands to her lips.