“My dear, The O’Melaghlin has kindly promised to remain with us a few days, and has sent back his chaise to the Wolfshead to fetch his baggage.”
“I am very much pleased to hear this,” said Palma, turning with a bright smile to the visitor.
“Thank you, madam! You may wonder, perhaps, why I should have chosen to travel all the way down from New York to West Virginia to get from you the London address of my children, when I might have written to you and got it by return mail.”
“No; indeed, I never once thought of it in that manner.”
“Well, I may as well tell you how it was. When I learned from Mr. Walling that my children were in London, I determined to go there as soon as possible. And knowing what a rush there is across the big pond at this season of the year, I went to get my passage secured in the first available steamer. But, bless you! though I went to every office of ocean steamers in New York, and wrote to every one in Boston, I could get no sort of a passage in any one for the next six weeks. The first one I could engage was for the first of July, in the steamer Leviathan for Southampton.”
“Why! Are you going by the Leviathan? We are going by that ship!” impulsively exclaimed Palma.
“You are!” cried The O’Melaghlin, appealing to Stuart.
“Indeed we are!” responded the latter.
“Delight upon delight! That is almost too good to be true! Well, I am overjoyed to hear this! Now to resume my explanation why I came to you instead of writing: Finding that I had three weeks upon my hands I said to myself: ‘I will not write to get meager news. I will go down to West Virginia and see these near connections of my unknown children, and I will talk with them and get from them every detail of my son’s and daughter’s lives and characters.’ And so here I am.”
“And now that you are here, O’Melaghlin, we hope that you will stay with us until the day comes when we must all leave Wolfscliff for New York to embark on our voyage,” said Stuart.