ness."

"Oh! Jock, don't press me so; a few days can't make much difference."

"Lucy," said Jock, sternly, "do you think it makes no difference to keep
a set of good people unhappy, just to save you a little trouble? I
thought you had more heart than that."

"Oh, let me go, Jock; let me go--that is little Tom, and he wants me,"
Lucy cried. She had no answer to make him--the only thing she could do
was to fly.

CHAPTER XV.

ON BUSINESS.

Ten thousand pounds! These words have very different meanings to
different people. Many of us can form little idea of what those simple
syllables contain. They enclose as in a golden casket, rest, freedom
from care, bounty, kindness, an easy existence, and an ending free of
anxiety to many. To others they are nothing more than a cipher on paper,
a symbol without any connection with themselves. To some it is great
fortune, to others a drop in the ocean. A merchant will risk it any day,
and think but little if the speculation is a failure. A prodigal will
throw it away in a month, perhaps in a night. But the proportion of
people to whom its possession would make all the difference between
poverty and wealth far transcends the number of those who are careless
of it. It is a pleasure to deal with such a sum of money even on paper.
To be concerned in giving it away, makes even the historian, who has
nothing to do with it, feel magnificent and all-bounteous. Jock, who had
as little experience to back him as any other boy of his age, felt a
vague elation as he drove in by Lucy's side to Farafield. To confer a
great benefit is always sweet. Perhaps if we analyse it, as is the
fashion of the day, we will find that the pleasure of giving has a
_fond_ of gratified vanity and self-consideration in it; but this
weakness is at least supposed to be generous, and Jock was generous to
his own consciousness, and full of delight at what was going to be done,
and satisfaction with his own share in it. But Lucy's sensations were
very different. She went with him with no goodwill of her own, like a
culprit being dragged to execution. Duty is not always willing, even
when we see it most clearly. Young Lady Randolph had a clear conviction
of what she was bound to do, but she had no wish to do it, though she
was so thoroughly convinced that it was incumbent upon her. Could she
have pushed it out of her own recollection, banished it from her mind,
she would have gladly done so. She had succeeded fo