“Very much, Sir Tom,” she said, with a brightness quite unusual to her, turning upon him eyes which met his with perfect frankness and calm. Will it be believed that Sir Thomas was utterly disgusted by this quite candid, affectionate, innocent response?
“Ah! that is precisely what I said,” he muttered to himself, jumping up impatiently from his chair; then he laughed and sat down again.
“Well, well, tell me how I can help you. This money is to be spent on the deserving poor. In short, it is a charitable fund.”
“There is nothing about deserving. It is a great deal of money. It is nearly as much as the half of what I have got. What papa wished was that it should be given back.”
“The half of what you have got!” Sir Thomas stared at her bewildered, in his mind making a rapid calculation that, with the half of what she had got, Lucy would no longer be the greatest heiress in England. He was not sorry. She would still have a great fortune. Somehow, indeed, it pleased and conciliated him that she should be put down from that high pedestal. This was his only reflection on the subject. “What are you to do? are you to establish institutions or build hospitals?” he said.
“Oh, no, nothing of that kind; only to provide for those that want, not for the very, very poor, at least not always; but for poor people who are not poor. Do you know what I mean, Sir Thomas?—for those who have been well off.”
“I understand: like me—poor ladies and poor gentlemen.”
“We were not ladies and gentlemen ourselves. It is not confined to them,” said Lucy, doubtfully; “families that are struggling to live, whether they are gentlemen, or whether they are not—clerks like my Uncle Rainy, or school-masters like papa. Do you consider it very insulting to offer people money, when you see that they want it very much?”
“Well, that depends,” said Sir Thomas, recovering his humorous look, “upon the person who offers and the person to whom it is offered. It happens so rarely that one has no experience on the subject.”
“Do you remember, Sir Thomas, when I borrowed that hundred pounds?” Lucy said. “That was for one—it was my first, my very first. She was very much offended, and then she said she would take it as a loan. I cheated her into it,” the girl said, with glee; “I told her I could not give any loans—papa never said anything about loans—but she could give it me back if she wished when I am my own mistress in seven years. Don’t you think she will forget before that time? It would be rather dreadful to have it back.”