"But what will become of your mother during that time?"
"I will leave four hundred dollars in your hands for her. The rest I will draw for my own uses."
"But you don't expect to travel round the world on two hundred dollars, surely?" said the lawyer.
"I shall work my way as far as I can," said Robert. "I can't afford to travel as a gentleman."
"Suppose you find yourself without money in a foreign land?"
"I am not afraid. I am willing to work, and I can make my way."
"Surely, Mrs. Rushton, you do not approve Robert's scheme?" said Mr. Paine.
But to his surprise he found that Mrs. Rushton was inclined to regard it favorably. She seemed to share Robert's belief that her husband was still living, and that Robert could find him. She was not a woman in the habit of reasoning, and had no conception of the difficulties in his way. The money left behind in the hands of Mr. Paine, supplemented by her own earnings, would be enough to maintain her for two years, and this thought made her easy, for she had a great dread of poverty and destitution.
When the lawyer found how Mrs. Rushton felt on the subject, he ceased his objections to the plan; for, though he had no confidence in our young hero's success in the object he had in view, he thought that a year's tour might benefit him by extending his knowledge of the world and increasing his self-reliance.
"How soon do you wish to start, Robert?" he asked.