“That depends also,” he said; “but I think it very likely that she will forget. Only take care, take care. Presents of a hundred pounds are very pleasant things. You will have crowds of claimants if you don’t mind.”
“A hundred pounds!” said Lucy; “oh, it was not an insignificant thing like that!”
“You think that insignificant? You have princely notions, it must be allowed. Might one ask—”
“I counted up very closely,” Lucy said. She was drawn along by the tide of her own confidences; “for it was no use giving a little bit that would be swallowed up directly, and do no good. You see it was a lady, and ladies are not so expensive as men. In that case, and it was my first, it was six thousand pounds.”
“Six thousand pounds!” Sir Thomas sprung to his feet in comical consternation, as if he had been struck by electricity. “My dear little girl,” he said, half tragically, half laughing, “do you know what you are doing? Are you sure this is in your father’s will? and do your guardians allow it? I feel my head going round and round. Six thousand pounds! to some one not related to you, a stranger!”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, earnestly, “or it would not be giving it back. My guardians oppose it as much as ever they can.”
“And I don’t wonder at it!” cried Sir Thomas. “I think I should oppose it, too; if I were one of them. My dear little Lucy, you are upsetting the very principles of political economy. Do you know what that means? You will demoralize everybody you come in contact with. Even I, though my instincts are not mendicant, it is all I can do not to hold out my hand for something. I shall be doing it if I stay much longer,” he said.
Lucy looked at him with a dubious, half alarmed look. She never was quite sure whether he was in jest or earnest, and the possibility, even the most distant possibility, that he could mean— Even Lucy’s imagination, however, could not go so far as that. He could read her doubt in her face, and laughed out.
“I warn you to take care,” he said. “You will be the ruin of all your friends; but, Lucy, Lucy, this is a very wonderful business; it is like a fairy tale. You gave away six thousand pounds, and were permitted to do so at your age? and you mean to do it again—and again?”
“Oh, as often as ever I can,” Lucy said, fervently. “I can not bear to think how many people may be in want of it, and that I don’t know them, and don’t know how to find them out. This makes me very unhappy when I think of it. Perhaps you will help me to find them—”