"Yes. I'll tell you," said Sissy, entering his room, "and you'll tell Mr. Hardwicke, won't you? I'll get the Elliotts to give me some luncheon, and then I can come here again between two and three. I shall have to sign it, or something, sha'n't I? Do tell your father I want it all to be finished to-day."
"I'll tell him."
"Tell him it's my birthday, so of course I must do just as I please and have everything I want to-day. I don't know whether that's the law, but I'm sure it ought to be."
"Of course it ought to be," Henry replied with fervor. "And I think we can undertake to say that it shall be our law, anyhow."
"Thank you," said Sissy. "I shall be so very glad! And it can't take long. I only want him to say that I wish all that I have to go to Percival Thorne."
"To Percival?" Hardwicke repeated, with a sensation as if she had suddenly stabbed him. "To Percival Thorne? Yes. Is that all I am to say?"
"That's all. I want it all to be for Percival Thorne, to do just what he likes with it. That can't take long, surely."
Hardwicke bit the end of a penholder that he had picked up, and looked uneasily at her: "You're awfully anxious to get this done, Miss Langton: you aren't ill, are you?"
"Oh, I'm well enough—much better than I was last year," said Sissy lightly. "But there's no good in putting things of this sort off, you know"—she dropped her voice—"as poor Mr. Thorne did. And your father said once that if I didn't make a will when I came of age my money would all go to Sir Charles Langton. He doesn't really want any more, I should think, for they say he is very rich. And he is only a second cousin of mine, and I have never seen him. It's funny, having so few relations, isn't it?"
"Very," said Hardwicke.