“Yes, yes, I see it! we must go! But how can I? how can we manage it? I can never live in a hotel, never exist in a crowd; I should suffocate!” And the Madame wheezed and panted and wiped the perspiration from her face, while her huge frame trembled like a jelly, so great was her agitation.
“I will tell you, Aunt Nannette,” said Ethel, dropping on her knees and taking the shaking hands in hers, while she lifted to the Madame’s troubled, distressed face her own—sparkling, animated, fairly radiant with hope and gladness. “I have already planned it all, and Dr. Bland approves. There are furnished houses to let. We will write and engage one for the whole season—six or eight months—and we will take our servants with us and go directly there, leaving this house in the care of a trusty middle-aged couple I know. We will have our own carriage and horses, and drive about the beautiful park to our hearts’ content. We will go now, while there is no crowd, and, having plenty of time, can see everything we care to look at without fatiguing ourselves by attempting too much at once.”
“How rapid you are! Really, child, you almost take my breath away!” panted the Madame, shaking her head dubiously, though evidently attracted by the bright picture Ethel had drawn.
“But you will go? I may make the arrangements? Oh, think what it would be to find your long-lost sister!” said Ethel, pressing the hands she held, and gazing with pleading eyes into the Madame’s face.
“Yes, yes! but ah, the journey? how am I to accomplish that?”
Ethel reassured her on that point, overruled one or two other objections which she raised, and, not giving her time to retract her permission, hastened to her writing-desk and wrote a note to Mr. Tredick, asking him to call that day or the next, and an answer to an advertisement of a furnished house to let in West Philadelphia, which, from the description, she felt nearly certain would suit them, engaging the first refusal, promising to be on the spot within a week, and to take immediate possession should everything prove to be as represented.
Both notes were despatched as soon as written, a message sent to the persons in whose care Ethel proposed to leave their present residence, and then she returned to her aunt.
“And now Mary and I will overhaul the trunks and decide, with your help, auntie, what is to be taken with us and what left behind.”
“Child, child,” cried the Madame breathlessly, “how precipitate you are! Engaged to be in Philadelphia in a week! How are we to prepare in that short space of time?”