“I don’t look at the things in the windows—what is the good? You would let me buy them all if I wanted them,” said Lucy, quietly.
“Every one!” said old Trevor, with a chuckle. “Every one! You might have a new dress every day of the year, if you liked!”
Lucy smiled; she went on with her knitting. This delightful possibility did not seem to affect her much—perhaps because it was a possibility.
“We met the little circus-boy on his pony,” she said. “Jock thinks so much of him. Papa, you always let me have everything I want—might I have a pony for Jock? It would make him so happy.”
“No,” said old Trevor, succinctly. “For yourself as many you like; but that sort of thing is not for the child. No, nothing of that sort.”
“Why?” she said, with something which in Lucy was impatience and vexation. It was too slight a ruffling of the calm surface to have told at all in any one else.
“Because, my dear, Jock must not have anything that is above his own rank in life. What should he do with a pony? He is not a gentleman’s son to be bred up with foolish notions. It would be all the worse for him to find out the difference afterward.”
“But he is my brother,” Lucy said, “and your son, papa. If he is not a gentleman’s son neither am I— How is he different from me? And do you think I can make such a difference when—when I am grown up—”
“You mean when I am dead? Say it out. Isn’t that what I’m always thinking of? The little boy, my dear,” said old Trevor, gravely, yet with his familiar chuckle breaking in, “is a mistake. He didn’t ought to have been at all, Lucy. Now he’s here, we can’t help it—we’ve got to put up with it; and we must make the best of him. We can’t send him out of the world because it was a mistake his coming into it; but he must keep to his own rank in life.”
“But, papa, if you would think a little why should there be such a difference? I so rich—and if he is to have nothing—”