"What's that, young woman?"
"Let her alone, George! You don't deserve a daughter! The child has spirit and it ought to be fostered, not squashed. In my young days a girl of her age would have wept her eyes out at the mere thought of leaving home—let alone going abroad and perhaps flying by aeroplane. This is the chance of her life. Isn't it, Molly?"
"Yes!" she cried, jubilantly, running to him and jumping on his knee.
I groaned. These two . . . children were inseparable—and incorrigible.
"The sea voyage," went on Gran'pa, relentlessly, "will do her fifty times as much good as all the schooling in the world."
"I doubt it . . ." I said, feeling like a dog in the manger.
"We don't! Do we, Molly?"
"No . . . fear!" she chortled, simply pouncing on the last word. "It will be the loveliest thing that ever was!" She got down from the knees of her confederate and protector and ran over to me: "Oh! Daddy! You might let me."
"You'd be terribly sick," I said, pulling at her hair.
"I wouldn't mind a bit. It'll be only at first. I should soon get over it."