‘We shall be going away to-morrow, Laurie,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘and I could not go without speaking to you. Oh, what a week this has been! When I think that it was only last Thursday night——’
‘Don’t speak of it, please,’ said Laurie; ‘one has need of all one’s strength. It is bad enough, but we must make the best of it. I wish you were not going away. I thought Mary would stay with my mother. How is she to get on when we are all gone?’
‘I might leave Mary for a little,’ said Mrs. Westbury, doubtfully; ‘and then we shall be close by at the Cottage, where your mother can send for us when she pleases. Ah, Laurie, if you had only had a sister of your own!’
‘If we had only had a great many things!’ said Laurie, with an attempt at a smile; ‘but, as for that, Mary is as good as a sister. I never knew the difference. I think she is the best creature in the world.’
‘Yes,’ said Aunt Lydia, looking at him keenly, with an inspection very different from her manner to Ben; ‘she is a good girl; but you always used to quarrel, Laurie. I did not think she was so much to you.’
‘She always thought me a good-for-nothing fellow,’ said Laurie, with a little laugh, ‘like most other people. I must show you now, if I can, that I’ve got some mettle in me. But, Aunt Lydia, you have not come to say good-bye?’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Westbury; and then she made a pause. ‘I can’t rest, Laurie; I can’t keep quiet and see you all in trouble,—when it is my fault!’
‘That is nonsense,’ said Laurence decidedly. ‘You may be quite sure it had been turning over in his mind for some time; and quite right, too,’ the young man added bravely. ‘How could we ever have known what stuff we were made of else? If there is any good in being a Renton, as you have so often told us, now is the time for it to show.’
‘Oh, Laurie,’ said his aunt, weeping, ‘that is what breaks my heart. ‘You have not a chance now, with the up-bringing you have had, and your poor mother’s soft ways,—not a chance! If my brother had only thought in time. This will could never stand if it was brought into a court of justice. He could not be in his right mind. Ben would not listen to me when I said so; but I must speak to you.’
‘You shall speak to me as much as you like,’ said Laurie, with his mother’s soft ways, ‘but not on that subject. It is sacred for us, whatever other people may think. And, after all, you know,’ he said, with a smile, ‘it is but for seven years. I shall only be about thirty at the end of the trial;—quite a boy!’