'The doctors strongly advise it, and we have all great hopes from it, my dear Willy,' said his mother.
'Then so have I,' said Willy; 'and, indeed, I like it extremely, and I am very grateful to you. The only thing I mind is, that you and my father should have to leave home and make a long sea voyage, when you do not like travelling, and Papa has so much to keep him in England.'
'Oh, never mind me,' said his mother; 'I shall like nothing so well as travelling, if it does you good.'
'And never mind me,' said his father; 'there is nothing of so much consequence to keep me in England, as your health to take me out of it.'
'Besides, my dear child,' said his mother, 'as the change of climate is so strongly recommended for you, it becomes a duty as well as a pleasure to try it.'
'So make your mind easy, my boy,' added his father; 'and I will go and take our passage for Madeira.'
The father left the room, and the mother remained conversing with her sick child, whose spirits were unusually excited. I scarcely knew him again. He was generally slow and quiet, and rather desponding about himself; but he now thought he should certainly get well, and was so eager and anxious to start without delay, that his mother had some difficulty in reconciling him to the idea that no ship would sail till next month. She also took great pains to impress upon him the duty of resignation, in case the attempt should fail, after all, in restoring his health; and she finally left him, not less hopeful, but more calm and contented with whatever might befall him.
And now began the preparations for the voyage. There was no time to spare, considering all that had to be done. Every body was at work; and though poor Willy himself could not do much to help, he thought of nothing else. His common books and drawings were changed for maps and voyages; the track to Madeira was looked up by him and Rose every day, and sometimes two or three times in the day, and every book consulted that contained the least reference to the Madeira Isles.
Edward was an indefatigable packer. He was not to be one of the travellers, as his father did not choose to interrupt his school-education; but no one was more active than he in forwarding the preparations for the voyage, and no one more sanguine about its results.
'We shall have Willy back,' he would say, 'turned into a fine strong fellow, as good a cricketer as Geoffrey or I, and a better scholar than either of us.'