"I don't know," said Sissy, looking a little doubtfully at the tall, fresh-colored young fellow, who smiled frankly in reply. "Oh, it isn't at all likely," said Mr. Henry with delightful candor. "The governor can't, for the life of him, understand how I make so many blunders. I've a special talent that way, I suppose, but I don't know how I came by it." "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. "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."