The two cousins had come home to dinner in high spirits at the
various kind things that had been said to, and of, Jock, and
discussing the various suggestions for the future that had been made
to them. They thought Mother Carey strangely silent, but when they
rose she called her son into the consulting room, as she still termed
it.
"My dear," she said, "this slate will tell you why this is the moment
I have looked forward to from the time your dear father was taken
from us with his work half done. He had been working out a
discovery. He was sure of it himself, but none of the faculty would
believe in it or take it up. Even Dr. Lucas thought it was a craze,
and I believe it can only be tested by risky experiments. All that
he had made out is in this book. You know he could not speak for
that dreadful throat. This is what he wrote. I copied it again,
putting in my answers lest it should fade, but these are his very
words, and that is my pledge. Magnum Bonum was our playful pet name
for it between ourselves.
"'I promise to keep the Magnum Bonum a secret, till the boys are
grown up, and then only to confide it to the one that seems fittest,
when he has taken his degree, and is a good, religious, wise, able
man, with brains and balance, fit to be trusted to work out and apply
such an invention, and not make it serve his own advancement, but be
a real good and blessing to all.
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