"Oh, no, you don't!" said Hildegarde, speaking lightly, though her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with real feeling. "You would send me back by express, labelled 'troublesome baggage.'
"Dear old Jack! You know how glad I am, without my saying it. But, oh! how we shall miss you! Your uncle—"
"Oh! Hugh will take care of Uncle Tom, won't you, Hugh? Hugh suits him down to the ground—I beg pardon, I mean through and through, and they will have fine times together."
"I will try!" said the child. "But we shall be like a pelican in the wilderness, I am afraid."
"You go straight home now?" Hildegarde asked.
"Straight home! five days with Daddy—bless him! and then he goes to New York with me, and sees me off. Oh! see here!" he began fumbling in his pockets. "I have a keepsake for you. I—of course you know I haven't any money, Hilda, or I would have bought you something; but Uncle Tom gave it to me on purpose to give to you; so it's partly from him, too. Here it is! It belonged to our great-grandmother, he says."
Such a lovely ring! A star of yellow diamonds set on a hoop of gold. Hildegarde flushed with delight. "Oh, Jack! how kind of him! how dear of you! Oh! what an exquisite thing! I shall wear it always."
"And—I say! how well it looks on your hand! I never noticed before what pretty hands you have, Hilda. You are the prettiest girl I ever saw, altogether."
"And Rose?" asked Hildegarde, smiling.
Jack blushed furiously. He had fallen deeply in love with Rose's photograph, and had been in the habit of gazing at it for ten or fifteen minutes every day for the past fortnight, ever since it arrived. "That's different!" he said. "She is an angel, if the picture is like her."