“There was nothing about lending, I think, in the will,” said Lucy, very doubtfully; “but,” she added, after a moment, with a sudden gleam of cheerfulness, “I will tell you how we can do it. I am to be quite free to do what I please in seven years—”
“In seven years!” poor Mrs. Russell’s face seemed to draw out and lengthen, as she said these words, until it was almost as long as the period, though it did not seem easy to see by what means the fact could affect her present purpose. Lucy nodded very cheerfully. She had quite regained her courage and satisfaction with her fate.
“I will give it you for seven years,” she said, going back to her seat, “and then you can give it me back again; there will be no need for I— O—what? or anything of the sort. We will be sure to pay each other, if we remember—”
“I shall be sure to remember, Miss Trevor,” said Mrs. Russell, almost sternly; “a matter of business like this is not a thing not to be forgot.”
“Then that is all settled,” cried Lucy, quite gayly. “Oh, I am so glad! I have been so unhappy since I was at Hampstead. I thought it must be my fault.”
“Not altogether your fault,” said Mrs. Russell. “Oh, you must not blame yourself too much, my dear, there was something on both sides; you were a little brusque, and perhaps thinking too much of your money. I should says that was the weak point in your character; and we were proud—we are too proud—that is our besetting sin,” she said, with an air of satisfaction.
Mrs. Russell dried the last lingering tears from the corners of her eyes, everything had become tranquil and sweet in the atmosphere once so laden with tragic elements; but still there was an anxious contraction in her forehead, and she looked wistfully at the girl who had so much in her hands.
“I know,” said Lucy, “you would like it directly, and I will try to get it at once. I will send it to you, if I can, to-night; but perhaps not to-night, it might be too late; to-morrow I think I could be quite sure. And then we must fix how much,” said Lucy, with something of that intoxication of liberality which children often display—children, but, alas! few people who have much to give. “How many thousand pounds would do?”
Mrs. Russell was stupefied, her eyes opened mechanically to their fullest width, her lips parted with consternation.
“Thousand pounds!” she echoed, aghast. The poor soul had thought of fifty, and a hundred had seemed to her something too magnificent to be dreamed of.