He was a slim and a fair young man, bearing a family resemblance to his cousin Lucy; and he had always been very “nice” to Lucy and to Jock. He came up to them now to solve all their difficulties, taking Jock’s eager hand out of his sister’s, and arresting their vehement career.
“Stop here, and I’ll put you on my shoulder, Jock; you’ll see a great deal better than among the crowd, such a little fellow as you are; and Lucy will talk to me.”
They made a very pretty group, as they stood thus at a respectful distance from Punch and his noisy audience, Jock mounted on his cousin’s shoulder, clapping his hands and crowing with laughter, while Lucy stood, pleased and smiling, talking to Philip, who was always so “nice.” The passers-by looked at them with an interest which was inevitable in the circumstances. Wherever Lucy went people looked at her and pointed her out as the heiress, and naturally the young man who was her relation was the subject of many guesses and speculations. To see them standing together was like the suggestion of a romance to all Farafield. Were they in love with each other? Would she marry him? To suppose that Philip, having thus the ball at his foot, should not be “after” the heiress, passed all belief.
But the talk that passed between them, and which suggested so many things to the lookers-on, was of the most placid kind.
“How is my uncle?” Philip asked. Old John Trevor was not his uncle, but the difference between age and youth made the cousinship resolvable into a more filial bond, and it sounded much nearer, which pleased the young man. “May I come and see him one of these evenings, Lucy? I am dining out to-day and to-morrow; but Friday perhaps--”
“How many people you must know!” said Lucy, half admiring, half amused; for young persons at school have a very keen eye for everything that looks like “showing off.”
“Yes, I know a good many people--thanks chiefly to you and my uncle.”
“To me? I don’t know anybody,” said Lucy.
“But they know you; and to be a cousin to a great heiress is a feather in my cap.”
Lucy only smiled; she was neither pleased nor annoyed by the reference, her fortune was so familiar a subject to her. She said, “Papa will be glad to see you. But I must not stand here on the street; Mrs. Stone will be angry; and I think Jock must have seen enough.”