Lucy rose from her stool to seat herself on her father’s
knee, and kissed him with that last request.
“Are you sure you won’t do mischief, now?”
he said, looking at her with delight.
“Yes, papa, quite sure. I’m very
wise; I’ve got all your business talents.
Didn’t you admire my accompt-book, now, when
I showed it you?”
“Well, well, if this youngster will keep his
counsel, there won’t be much harm done.
And to tell the truth, I think there’s not much
chance for us any other way. Now, let me go off
to sleep.”
Wakem in a New Light
Before three days had passed after the conversation
you have just overheard between Lucy and her father
she had contrived to have a private interview with
Philip during a visit of Maggie’s to her aunt
Glegg. For a day and a night Philip turned over
in his mind with restless agitation all that Lucy
had told him in that interview, till he had thoroughly
resolved on a course of action. He thought he
saw before him now a possibility of altering his position
with respect to Maggie, and removing at least one
obstacle between them. He laid his plan and calculated
all his moves with the fervid deliberation of a chess-player
in the days of his first ardor, and was amazed himself
at his sudden genius as a tactician. His plan
was as bold as it was thoroughly calculated.
Having watched for a moment when his father had nothing
more urgent on his hands than the newspaper, he went
behind him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,—
“Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and
look at my new sketches? I’ve arranged
them now.”
“I’m getting terrible stiff in the joints,
Phil, for climbing those stairs of yours,” said
Wakem, looking kindly at his son as he laid down his
paper. “But come along, then.”
“This is a nice place for you, isn’t it,
Phil?—a capital light that from the roof,
eh?” was, as usual, the first thing he said on
entering the painting-room. He liked to remind
himself and his son too that his fatherly indulgence
had provided the accommodation. He had been a
good father. Emily would have nothing to reproach
him with there, if she came back again from her grave.
“Come, come,” he said, putting his double
eye-glass over his nose, and seating himself to take
a general view while he rested, “you’ve
got a famous show here. Upon my word, I don’t
see that your things aren’t as good as that
London artist’s—what’s his name—that
Leyburn gave so much money for.”
Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated
himself on his painting-stool, and had taken a lead
pencil in his hand, with which he was making strong
marks to counteract the sense of tremulousness.
He watched his father get up, and walk slowly round,
good-naturedly dwelling on the pictures much longer
than his amount of genuine taste for landscape would
have prompted, till he stopped before a stand on which
two pictures were placed,—one much larger
than the other, the smaller one in a leather case.
