"To her you are a child, and to me you are still a girl, and a mighty fine one."
"It's so good to have you back, David! You haven't forgotten the Jig! Where's your flute? Get it, and I'll accompany you. I can drum a little now—after a fashion. We'll let them talk."
So they amused themselves for the rest of the evening with music, and Lady Thryng's face lost the strained and harassed expression it had worn all during dinner, and took on a look of contentment. After this the days were spent by David in going over his uncle's large mass of papers and correspondence, with the aid of Mr. Stretton and a secretary. A colossal task it proved to be.
No one, even his lawyer, who had his confidence more than any one else, knew in what the old Lord Thryng's wealth really consisted, although Mr. Stretton surmised much of his surplus income of late years had been placed in Africa. As his papers had not been set in order or tabulated for years, every note, land loan, mortgage, and rental had to be unearthed slowly and laboriously from among a mass of written matter and figures, more or less worthless; for the old lord had a habit of saving every scrap of paper—the backs of notes and letters—for summing up accounts and jotting down memoranda and dates.
Certain hours of each day David devoted to this labor, collecting his papers in a small room opening off from the law chambers of Mr. Stretton, where for years his uncle had kept a private safe. Conscientiously he toiled at the monotonous task, until