"Why, papa! What is the matter? Are you going away? Are you sick? What made you come home so early?" were the questions which Alice gave rapidly, without waiting for an answer.
Mr. Winter said, "Yes, dear, I am obliged to go to Nuremberg, Germany, on business immediately, and mamma is trying to make up her mind whether it is best for her to go with me. She does not like to leave you for so long a time, and we do not think it wise to take you with us, when you are getting on at school so nicely."
"O papa, please take me with you. I shall learn just as much on such a lovely trip as at school, and you know I can take care of mamma, and keep her from being lonely when you are busy. O papa, please ask mamma to let me go. I should be so unhappy to stay without you, even with dear Aunt Edith, and I know there is where you would send me."
"Alice, dear, go to your room and get ready for dinner, and leave us to talk it over," said Mr. Winter. "My dear little daughter knows that no matter which way we decide, it will be as we think is best for all of us. You know it is as hard for us to leave you as it will be for you to let us go."
Alice left the room without another word, with her heart beating very fast from the excitement of it all.
The thought of going to Europe across the great ocean was a very happy one to a bright girl of fifteen who was studying all the time about the places she would visit and the objects of interest she would see, if her papa would only decide to take her.
Alice sat down by the window of her pretty room, and looked out on the village street, far away in the northern part of the State of New York. She wondered how the ocean looked, as she had never seen any larger body of water than that of Lake Erie, when she went with her mother to make a visit in Cleveland.
She also wondered if her state-room on the steamer would be as large as the room she was in; also, would she be sick, and how would all those wonderful cities look; if they could be as beautiful as the pictures she had seen of them.
Then she remembered that only last week she had been studying about the quaint old city of Nuremberg, and wishing she could go there and see all its curiosities.
Alice was startled by the dinner-bell, and could not even wait to brush her hair, she was so anxious to know what her papa had decided.