Lucy was permitted to take Jock to Hampstead by herself in Lady Randolph’s brougham next day. They had spent the morning buying things for him, a school-boy dressing-case, a little desk, various books, and an umbrella--possessions which, up to this time, had been considered too valuable for the child, of whom nobody took any special care. He went to his new home with such an abundance of property as elated even Jock, though he was not given to trivialities. He had a watch too, which was more than property, which was a kind of companion, a demi-living thing to console him when he should be dull; and the child bore up with great heroism in face of the inevitable parting. Indeed, Jock regarded the whole matter in an extremely practical common sense way. Lucy herself was disposed to be tearful during the long drive. She held him close to her side, with her arm round him. “You will be good, Jock,” she said; “you will not be silly, and read books, but do your lessons and your sums, and everything. Promise me that you will do your lessons, Jock.” Jock eyed his sister with that indulgent contempt, which her want of discrimination often produced in him. “Of course I will do my lessons,” he said; “it is you who are silly. What else should I go away for? People must do lessons, it appears, before they grow up. If I didn’t mean to do them,” Jock said, with a full sense of his own power of deciding his fate, “I should stay at home-- I shouldn’t go.” This silenced Lucy for the moment; but she was not so confident as he was. “When you get dull, dear, and when there is nobody to talk to, and when you begin to feel lonely”--the tears got into Lucy’s eyes again as she added line after line to this picture-- “then I am afraid, I am afraid you will begin to read, you will forget about everything else.” Jock drew himself away from her arm with a little offense; he looked at her severely. “I am not just a baby--or a girl,” he said indignantly. Then he added, softening, “And I don’t mean to be dull. I will tell Mary a great deal. It will do her good. You don’t mind so much about things when you have a great many other things in your head.” Once more this oracular utterance silenced his sister for the moment; and then with natural inconsistency she resented his philosophy. “I did not think you were so changeable. You are quite pleased to have Mary: you don’t care for leaving me. It is I that will be lonely, but you don’t mind a bit!” cried Lucy. Jock sighed with the impatience which his elders so often show when a woman is unreasonable. “Don’t you _want_ me to learn lessons then?” he said.