He, too, should have land like his brother--land to
possess, to cultivate, to make profit from, to bequeath. For some
time he had wondered that Susan had been so much absorbed in Willie's
present, that she had never seemed to look forward to his future,
state. Michael had long felt the boy to be a trouble; but of late he
had absolutely loathed him. His gibbering, his uncouth gestures, his
loose, shambling gait, all irritated Michael inexpressibly. He did
not come near the Yew Nook for a couple of days. He thought that he
would leave her time to become anxious to see him and reconciled to
his plan. They were strange lonely days to Susan. They were the
first she had spent face to face with the sorrows that had turned her
from a girl into a woman; for hitherto Michael had never let twenty-
four hours pass by without coming to see her since she had had the
fever. Now that he was absent, it seemed as though some cause of
irritation was removed from Will, who was much more gentle and
tractable than he had been for many weeks. Susan thought that she
observed him making efforts at her bidding, and there was something
piteous in the way in which he crept up to her, and looked wistfully
in her face, as if asking her to restore him the faculties that he
felt to be wanting.
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