came into the room. She gave him a sort of half smile.

"It is more reasonable now than when you were a child," she said; "for I
hear you are doing extremely well at school, and gaining golden
opinions. That is quite as it should be. It is the only way you can
repay Lucy for all she has done for you."

"I don't think," said Jock, looking at her over his book, "that Lucy
wants to be repaid."

"Probably not," said Lady Randolph. Then she made a pause, and looked
from him to the book he held, and then to him again. "Perhaps you don't
think," she said, "there is anything to be repaid."

They were old antagonists; when he was a child and Lucy had insisted on
carrying him with her wherever she went, Lady Randolph had made no
objections, but she had not looked upon Jock with a friendly eye. And
afterwards, when he had interposed with his precocious wisdom, and
worsted her now and then, she had come to have a holy dread of him. But
now things had righted themselves, and Jock had attained an age of which
nobody could be afraid. The Dowager thought, as people are so apt to
think, that Jock was not grateful enough. He was very fond of Lucy, but
he took things as a matter of course, seldom or never remembering that
whereas Lucy was rich, he was poor, and all his luxuries and well-being
came from her. She was glad to take an opportunity of reminding him of
it, all the more as she was of opinion that Sir Tom did not sufficiently
impress this upon the boy, to whom she thought he was unnecessarily
kind. "I suppose," she resumed, after a pause, "that you come here
always in the holidays, and quite consider it as your home?"

Jock still sat and looked at her across his great folio. He made her no
reply. He was not so ready in the small interchanges of talk as he had
been at eight, and, besides, it was new to him to have the subject
introduced in this way. It is not amusing to plant arrows of this sort
in any one's flesh if they show no sign of any wound, and accordingly
Lady Randolph grew angry as Jock made no reply. "Is it considered good
manners," she said, "at school--when a lady speaks to you that you
should make no answer?"

"I was thinking," Jock said. "A fellow, whether he is at school, or not,
can't answer all that at once."

"I hope you do not mean to be impertinent. In that case I should be
obliged to speak to my nephew," said Lady Randolph. She had not intended
to quarrel with Jock. It was only the vacancy of the morni