"Oh, delightful!" cried Maud. "Oh, Dick, my dear, it will set you up as nothing else could; and you may hope to come back in the fall as well and strong as ever."
Dr. Percival looked inquiringly at Violet.
"Yes, cousin," she said with a smile, "I think we can make you very comfortable; and that without inconveniencing anybody; especially as Grandpa and Grandma Dinsmore decline to return in the Dolphin. They go from here to Philadelphia by rail, to visit her relations there or in that region. So you need not hesitate about it for a moment, and," glancing at her brother, "you will have your doctor along to see that you are well taken care of and not allowed to expose yourself on deck when you should be down in the saloon or lying in your berth."
"Yes," laughed Harold, "I shall do my best to keep my patient within bounds and see that he does nothing to bring on a relapse and so do discredit to my medical and surgical knowledge and skill."
"Which I should certainly be most sorry to do," smiled Dick. "If I do not do credit to it all, it shall be no fault of mine. Never again, cousin, can I for a moment forget that you stand at about the head of your profession—or deserve to, certainly—as both physician and surgeon. Captain, I accept your kind offer with most hearty thanks. I feel already something like fifty per cent. better for the very thought of the rest and pleasure of the voyage, the visit to my old home and friends, and then a sojourn during the hot months in the cooler regions of the North."
From that time his improvement was far more rapid than it had been, and Maud was very happy over that and her preparations for the contemplated trip, in which Grandma Elsie and Cousins Annis and Violet gave her valuable assistance.
At length a letter was received telling that the newly-married pair might be expected two days later. Chester brought the news to Viamede shortly after breakfast and all heard it with pleasure, for they were beginning to feel a strong drawing toward their northern homes.
"It is good news," said Grandma Elsie; "and now I want to carry out a plan of which I have been thinking for some time."
"In regard to what?" asked her father.
"The reception to be given our bride and groom," she answered. "I want it to be given here; all the connection now in these parts to be invited, house and lawn to be decorated as they were for our large party just after the wedding, and such a feast of fat things as we had then to be provided."