“He is fretting because he has taken it into his head that he would like to go with me.”
“Like to go with you, Dick?” cried Uncle Joe, laying hold of the arms of his easy-chair.
“Yes, Joe, I’m afraid I have turned his head with my descriptions of collecting abroad.”
To my utter astonishment, as I sat there with my face burning, and my hands hot and damp, Aunt Sophy did not say a word.
“But—but you wouldn’t like to go with your Uncle Richard, Nat, would you?” said Uncle Joe.
“I can’t help it, uncle,” I said, as I went to him; “but I should like to go. I don’t want to leave you, but I’d give anything to go collecting with Uncle Dick, anywhere, all over the world.”
Uncle Joe took out his red handkerchief and sat wiping his face.
“I have turned it over in my mind a dozen times,” said Uncle Dick, “and sometimes I have thought that it would be an injustice to the boy, sometimes I have concluded that with his taste for natural history, his knowledge of treating skins and setting out butterflies and moths, it would be a shame not to give him every encouragement.”
“How?” said my aunt, drily.
“By taking him with me and letting him learn to be a naturalist.”