Now, this was a question that had much troubled Lucy’s mind; for, indeed, Jock had not been expected, and his presence somewhat disturbed the arrangements of Lady Randolph’s household, while, on the other hand, Lucy had already given to her little brother the position which every woman gives to some male creature, and consulted his wishes with a servility which sometimes was ludicrously inappropriate, as in the present instance. She could not bring herself to hurt Jock’s feelings by suggesting that it would be better for him to go to school, though this conviction had been gaining upon her as her own mind calmed, and the child himself recovered his spirits and courage. Lucy’s heart began to beat a little faster when her little autocrat broached the question. She came up to him and began to stroke and smooth the limp locks, which would not be picturesque, whatever was done to them. “That is what vexes me a little, Jock; I don’t know. You ought to be getting on with your education, and Lady Randolph is very kind; but she did not know you were coming--” “Nor me either,” said Jock, regardless of grammar. He had got over this painful uprooting of his little life, but even at eight, such a disturbance of habits is not easily got over. There was no white rug to lie down upon, no old father always seated there to justify the strange existence of the child, and Lady Randolph, shocked by his indiscriminate reading, had provided him with good-little-boy books, which did not at all suit Jock. He mused a little, gazing down into the street, and then resumed. “Nor me fit her. I would like some other place; I would like you and me to stay always at home, as we used to do. I would like--” Jock paused again, not very clear what it was that he would like, and Lucy looked vaguely over his head, waiting for the utterance of her oracle. Poor little oracle, for whom there was no certain and settled place! She stroked his hair softly, with infinite tenderness, in her half-motherly, half-childish soul, to make him amends for this wrong which Providence had done him. She did not know what to suggest, nor what place to think of, but watched him to divine his wishes, as if he had been double and not half her age. “I would like,” said Jock, some gleam of association recalling to him one fable among the many that filled his memory, “to be a giant like that one you told me the story about, you never told me the end of that story, Lucy. I’d like to be able to go where I liked, and travel all over the world, and meet with black knights, and dwarfs, and armies marching--” “There are no dwarfs nor giants nowadays,” said Lucy, “but you will be able to go where you like when you are a man.” “It’s so long to wait till you are a man,” said the child, peevishly. “I’d like you and me to go away together and nobody to stop us. I’d like to be cast away on a desert island,” he cried, with a sudden perception of paradise; “that’s what I should like best of all.”