"Then perhaps it had better be Mr. Hardwicke. If it were a waltz, now—" and she laughed. "But it isn't a waltz: it is something very important. Do you know anything about wills?"
He looked up in sudden apprehension: "Is it about a will? Mrs. Middleton's? Is anything the matter?"
"No, it isn't Aunt Middleton's: it's mine," was the composed reply. But seeing relief, and almost amusement, on his face, she added hastily, "I can make a will, can't I? I'm twenty-one, you know: it's my birthday to-day."
"Then I wish you many happy returns of the day."
"Thank you, but can I make a will?"
"Of course you can make a will."
"A will that will be good?" Sissy insisted, still speaking in the low tone she had adopted when she began to explain the object of her visit. "Can I make it here and now?"
"Not on horseback, I think," said Hardwicke with a smile. "You would be tired of sitting here while we took down all your instructions. It isn't very quick work making ladies' wills. They generally leave no end of legacies. I suppose they are so good they don't forget anybody."
"Mine won't be like that: mine will be very short," Sissy said. "And I suppose I am not good, for I shall forget almost everybody in it." She laughed as she said it, yet something in her voice struck Hardwicke as curiously earnest. "I will come in, I think, and tell you about it," she went on. "I want to make it to-day."
"To-day?" he repeated as he helped her to dismount.