“Not a bit of it, Katie. Here you are, and here you remain. Now, Prescott, please go on. It is agreed Katie is to give singing lessons, and I am to stay at home and nurse baby.”
“Frank, that is unkind,” Katie said, with the tears in her eyes. “Why should I not have the pleasure of helping too?”
“My own Katie,” Frank said. “If the worst comes to the worst, you shall help; but I hope that we shall hit on something better than that. Your proper work will be quite as hard, my pet; what with baby and me you will have quite enough to do. I am afraid I shall be the most troublesome of the two. Now, Prescott, have you anything else to propose?”
“Nothing definite, Frank; but if I were in your place, with your strength and energy, and with such a brave-hearted wife to back me and help me, I should emigrate. I am afraid there is no sort of profession here for which you are fitted, but you are just the man to get on out there. A man who is strong and active, and is willing to turn his hand to anything, is safe to get on; and no kind of work is considered dishonouring out there.”
“By Jove, Prescott, that would be just the thing for me, but it would be a rough life for poor Kate.”
“Not rougher for me than for you, Frank. Besides, you know that I could really help you out there.”
“I should think so, Kate; still I think if we really do make up our minds to it, it would be better for me to go out first to make a home for you, Katie—a rough home, dear, but still a home—and for you to stay for a little while with the Drakes.”
“Look here, Frank,” his wife said, with a tear glistening in her eye again, and a laugh that was nearly a cry, “I promise you solemnly, that if you once leave me behind, you leave me behind for good. You don’t mean it, do you, husband?”
“No, darling; that is, I don’t mean it, if you don’t want it. Well, Prescott, and which of the colonies do you think would suit me best?”
“Ah, that is a matter for great consideration, Frank. You must do nothing in a hurry. There are Canada, the Cape, the various Australian colonies, and New Zealand. You must get up the subject, and settle a little what line you mean to take up.”