David crossed the room and sat down before the piano. "How strange this old place seems without the others—Bob, and the cousins, and uncle himself! We weren't admitted often—but—"
"Sh—sh—" said Laura, who had followed him and stood at his ride. "Don't remind mamma. She remembers too much—all the time. Play the 'King's Hunting Jig,' David. Remember how you used to play it for me every evening after dinner, when I was a girl?"
"Do I remember? Rather! I have done nothing with the piano since then—when you were a girl. I'll play it for you now, while you are a girl."
"But I really am grown up now, David. It's quite absurd for me to go about like this. It's only because mamma chooses to have it so. She even keeps a governess for me still."
"To her you are a child, and to me you are still a girl, and a mighty fine one."
"It's so good to have you back, David! You haven't forgotten the Jig! Where's your flute? Get it, and I'll accompany you. I can drum a little now—after a fashion. We'll let them talk."
So they amused themselves for the rest of the evening with music, and Lady Thryng's face lost the strained and harassed expression it had worn all during dinner, and took on a look of contentment. After this the days were spent by David in going over his uncle's large mass of papers and correspondence, with the aid of Mr. Stretton and a secretary. A colossal task it proved to be.
No one, even his lawyer, who had his confidence more than any one else, knew in what the old Lord Thryng's wealth really consisted, although Mr. Stretton surmised much of his surplus income of late years had been placed in Africa. As his papers had not been set in order or tabulated for years, every note, land loan, mortgage, and rental had to be unearthed slowly and laboriously from among a mass of written matter and figures, more or less worthless; for the old lord had a habit of saving every scrap of paper—the backs of notes and letters—for summing up accounts and jotting down memoranda and dates.
Certain hours of each day David devoted to this labor, collecting his papers in a small room opening off from the law chambers of Mr. Stretton, where for years his uncle had kept a private safe. Conscientiously he toiled at the monotonous task, until weeks, then months, slipped by, hardly noticed, ignoring all social life. When his mother or Laura broached the subject, he would say: "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' and this must be done first."
He was not unmindful of his wife during this interval, but wrote frequently, and, to guard against any danger of her being left without resources should something unforeseen befall him, he placed in Bishop Towers's hands the residue of money remaining to him in Canada, for Cassandra. He wrote her to use it as occasion required, and not to spare it, that it was hers without restriction. He sent her the names of books he wished she would read—that she should write the publishers for them. He begged her to do no more weaving for money—but only for her own amusement, and above all to trust and be happy, not to be sorrowful for this long delay, which he would cut as short as he could.