“Oh no; only one of those nice things that grown-up people can do. That’s what I should like to be grown-up for—I should have so many nice plans.”
The boys sat thinking each his own thoughts, and then Squib said,—
“I suppose your mother told you about it, then, because you didn’t know much the other day.”
“Yes, she told me in the night, when I couldn’t go to sleep. We had a nice long talk about lots of things. She talked about father’s plan; but I didn’t tell her what you had told me. I thought it was a secret.”
“I think it is just now, till something has been settled. O Seppi! I wish you and I could go together to see the valley, and make plans about your new home there.”
Seppi looked all round him, up and down his own valley, and away towards the Silent Watchers guarding it on either hand, and said,—
“I think I like this one best. I don’t think I want to go to the other, though I like to think of them there. Little Herr, will you ever go to see it some day, when you are a man?”
“Oh yes!” cried Squib eagerly. “When I’m a man I shall do lots and lots of things. I mean to be a mountaineer for one thing, like Mr. Lorimer, and climb all the mountains that can be climbed, and I shall have your father for my guide, and I shall stay at his hotel, and we shall be great friends. You know he was very brave, and saved my father’s life. I shall never forget that. It’s not the sort of thing one ever does forget.”
Seppi looked very pleased and happy.
“I think father is a very brave man,” he said, “though he never talks about the brave things he does.”