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. "And some people have such a lot," said Sissy thoughtfully. "But I always feel as if the Thornes were my relations." "I suppose so. At any rate, I don't see that Sir Charles Langton has any claim upon you." There was silence for a minute, Sissy drawing an imaginary outline on Hardwicke's carpet with her riding-whip, he following her every movement with his eyes. "I shall have to sign both my Christian names, I suppose?" she said abruptly. "Have you two? I didn't know. What is the other?" "Jane." "Jane! I like that," said Henry. "Yes, sign them both." "Thank you. I don't want to seem like an idiot to your father. I should like it best if I could just write 'Sissy' and nothing else, as I do at the end of my letters. When I see 'Cecilia Jane Langton' I feel inclined to call out, 'This is none of I!' like the old woman." She stood up to go: "You won't forget, will you?" "No, I won't forget." "Everything to Percival Thorne." "Percival Thorne is an uncommonly lucky fellow," said the young man, looking down. Sissy stopped short, glanced at him and colored. In her anxiety she had never considered the light in which the bequest might strike Henry Hardwicke. In fact, she had not thought of him at all except as a messenger. She was accustomed to take him for granted on any occasion. She had known him all her life, and he was always, in her eyes, the big friendly boy with whom she pulled crackers and played blindman's buff at children's parties. She dreamed of no possible romance with Henry, and did not imagine that he could have such a dream about her. He was as harmless as a brother, without a brother's right to question and criticise. It was precisely that feeling which had been at the root of the friendliness which the Fordborough gossips took for a flirtation. They could not have been more utterly mistaken. She liked Henry Hardwicke--she knew that he was honest and honorable and good--but if any one had said that he was a worthy young man, I believe she would have assented. And that is the last adjective which a girl would apply to her ideal.