So Dan had his way. When the doctor came he agreed with Charles that Dawn should be gotten away at once into a high, healthy region. By this time Mrs. Van Rensselaer's brother had arrived with a faithful family servant. There was no need to stay. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had roused herself to add her voice of urgency that Dawn go at once away from contagion. So they hitched their horses to the big Van Rensselaer carriage and rode away on a second wedding journey, attended by Dan and Rags, two faithful servitors.
Once during the afternoon, when Dan had left them for a few minutes, they had looked after him lovingly:
"Dear Dan!" said Charles. "I don't know what I should have done without him. He must have his college course. How would you like to have us send him to Harvard as a sort of thank-offering for what he has done for us?"
And Dawn smiled happily into her husband's eyes as she answered:
"Oh, how beautiful! Could we?"
They planned it all out briefly then, and that evening, at the setting of the sun, as they rode forth from the plague-stricken village toward the high, cool hills where waited the little white house, Charles broached the subject to Dan.
Charles and Dawn were in the back seat, Dan driving in front, with Rags at his feet, with his head held proudly, as if he had always ridden in a carriage with two gray horses.
"Dan," said Charles, leaning forward a little that he might the better see the boy's face, "when Dawn and I go back to Cambridge in the fall, for my last year at Harvard, we're going to take you with us."
Rags smiled widely. He had heard the talk in the afternoon, and he expected to go to college himself.
Dan turned with a radiant, awed face, and grasped Charles's hand.