As he entered the doctor was saying to Rupert, "I have been considering your objections to my plans for you, and think I can see a way out of the difficulty in regard to leaving your business."
"What is that?" Rupert asked, and Don, aroused to eager interest, dropped into a chair and listened for the doctor's explanation with bated breath. "Could it be that Rupert was going from home? and if so, where? and what difference might it make in his own plans?"
"Simply this," returned Dr. Landreth, with his genial smile, "that I will take charge of it and carry it on for you, if that arrangement seems to you entirely satisfactory."
"A most generous offer, Charlie!" exclaimed Rupert, flushing with surprise and gratitude, "but would it not interfere with your professional duties?"
"No; not necessarily. I should merely take the oversight, keeping the good clerk you have, and getting another equally competent—the two to do the work between them."
"Many thanks," said Rupert, grasping his brother-in-law's hand; "you have removed my greatest difficulty. I begin to think I can follow out your prescriptions, if"—and he turned smilingly to Don—"if Don is as ready to sacrifice himself for my sake."
"I hope so, Ru; what is it?" the boy asked, a trifle huskily, for his momentary gleam of hope died out at the question.
It shone out with tenfold brilliancy at his brother's reply. "Charlie thinks I am in danger of permanent loss of health unless I give up my business for a time, and have an entire change of scene; so he advises me to join the party about starting for California. He thinks the journey across the plains just the thing for me. But I ought to have some friend—say a brother—with me; so it may depend upon your willingness to go."
"My willingness?" interrupted Don eagerly; "I'd be delighted, Ru, and do the very best for you that I know how."