“At least I’m ready to risk what’s sure to happen.”
“What’s sure to happen?”
“His coming while I’m away.” Hildegarde flung out the words with a passion Bella had never seen in her before. “Yes, that’s what will happen. I shall have waited for him at home here all my life till this summer. And this summer, while I’m gone, he’ll come to Valdivia. You’ll see! He’ll come.”
CHAPTER XIII
No prevision of Hildegarde’s as to Cheviot’s disapproval of her plan approached the degree to which he fought against her going to the North.
Mrs. Mar, secretly dismayed at her husband’s willingness to stay away indefinitely, was not ill-content for once to see the “stolid Hildegarde” stirred to action. It satisfied a need in the mother, that the daughter had never ministered to before. Hildegarde was the sort of girl who could take excellent care of herself, and her health was superb. She had no important concerns such as the boys had to chain them at home. She was not the mother of a family, nor even president of the Shakspere Society. The welfare of the Hindus would be wholly unaffected by her departure. The journey was quite unlike that terrible one involved in going to the Klondike. It could be made in a comfortable ship; the whole of it by sea. Her mother would go with her to the steamer, and Hildegarde would stay on board till her father met her at the Alaskan port.
But they had all reckoned without Cheviot.