"Behold the hour is ripe and I am here to see!"
One other group there was, strolling idly about the garden, toying with Lady Rosalind, and contentedly amusing themselves until such time as they could make their errand to Skyrie known. Nobody seemed to know them; even Seth Winters failed to recognize the strangers and, for a moment, feared what they might have come to say. The next instant his brow cleared and his laughter was merrier than before.
Mr. Montaigne was the first to state his business, when once all were ready to listen. It was extremely simple and concerned Dorothy most of all. Said he:
"My dear young lady, we have come to invite you to accompany us to Europe. We shall leave New York in a few weeks and remain abroad for one, possibly two, years. We are going to give our children the benefit of foreign education, which we want you to share with them and along whatever lines you, or your parents, select. Of course, there will be no expense to you, who will be to us exactly as our own daughter, and whom we have learned to love almost as such. Will you go?"
For a moment nobody spoke. Then said Dorothy very quietly, and scarcely daring to look at Helena or Herbert in their so evident disappointment:
"I thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Montaigne, for your great kindness. It is very wonderful that you should have shown it to me whom you have known such a little while. But I cannot go. My father and mother need me and—I need them. A foreign education would not help me to earn my living as I must do some day, and—I thank you again, but I cannot go."
To Helena's and Herbert's pleadings, which so strenuously followed, she could give no other answer. The invitation had been most tempting to her who so dearly loved to see new places and new people, but—her answer still was: "No."
Then the family from the Towers departed and Friend Oliver began:
"Thee is a good daughter, Dorothy Chester, and thee has well said that as a poor girl thee will need only the plainest education."
"Beg pardon, sir, but I did not say that! I shall get just as good an education as I can, but I won't turn my back on those I love and who love me for the sake of getting it. That's already planned for. Dear Mr. Winters is going to open a school in the old smithy and all of us are to attend it. We've talked it over many a day, knowing how soon our summer friends would be away and our own real time for study and work would come. Jim and I, all the Babcocks, and——"