“That is why you talk so glibly of a separation for months. You had better not try it, Elfrida. You had better go with your husband and party, or make them stay here with you.”
“Not so, Francis. I will not leave you, now that I have come to you after so many years of separation. And, on the other hand, I will not keep the other members of our family party from their travel. It is necessary that young people should have the advantage of this continental tour, and it is desirable that they should have the protection of their father, as well as of their cousin. So I must stay here, and they must go. If Mr. Force or myself should grow lonesome during the season of separation he can come here to me. Neither Abel nor myself should feel the slightest hesitation in leaving our young girls in the care of their cousin, Leonidas.”
“My dear, you have some strange, new, and, I suppose, American ideas of the liberty allowable to young people.”
“To our own young people, who certainly may be trusted with liberty,” replied Elfrida Force, with a smile.
“Well, of course—of course. I am human and selfish enough to be very glad that you are to stay with me instead of going with your party.”
The brother and sister then talked of some details relating to the intended tour, until the tête-à-tête was broken into by the return of the walking party.
It was the first of July that the tourists, consisting of Abel, Leonidas, Odalite, Wynnette and Elva Force and Rosemary Hedge, set out from Enderby to London, en route for Dover and Paris.
They were to have a three months’ travel over the continent, and were to return on the first of October, unless they should receive advices from the earl to meet him and his sister at Baden-Baden, where he often went in the autumn for the benefit of his health.
And with this understanding, and with the promise of an incessant fire of letters from both sides, the friends parted.
Leonidas, it should have been explained, on account of his six years active service at sea—serving double turns, as he put it—had got a six months furlough, beginning from the first of May. He would, therefore, not be due at the navy department to report for orders until the first of November.