"Well, Mary, I can't stay at home; I shall have to go to Boston; and I presume you will feel sorry to have me go; but suppose I should bring you something nice when I come back—a little rabbit, or something of the kind?"
"O, then you may go, uncle," said Mary, clapping her hands, as a certain lord of the barn yard does his wings, just before crowing, and dancing up and down, as if she saw the little white rabbit, with his long ears and red eyes, actually munching his clover and bean pods on the carpet.
Ha! ha! ha! The lesson Uncle Frank learned then was, that the love of children sometimes lies on the surface of the heart, and does not reach quite to the bottom of it. However, I suppose the same is true of grown people, too, sometimes, though they are usually more careful as to what they say, so that they do not let the cat out of the bag.
But I shall be taken up as a vagrant, if I go wandering about in this style.
CHAP. VI.[ToC]
A NOBLE RESOLUTION.
As I said, the children all liked the good old gentleman, for some reason or other. Now I think of it, I guess the reason of their liking him might have been hid away in some sly place, as was the reason of Mr. Somebody for not liking Doctor Fell. This Mr. Somebody used to say, as you probably have heard,