When they were eating breakfast, much to Charlotte's amazement, the village express drove into the yard.
“Why, there is the express, papa!” she said.
“Yes, honey,” replied Carroll, calmly. “I have a trunk I want to send to New York.”
“Oh, papa, you are not going away?”
“Sending a trunk does not necessarily imply you are going yourself, honey. I have a trunk to send in connection with some business.”
“Oh!” said Charlotte, quite satisfied.
Carroll rose from the table and showed the expressman the way to his room, and the trunk was brought down and carried away, and Charlotte asked no more questions and thought no more about it. Carroll walked to the station. When it was time for him to start, he went to Charlotte, who was clearing away the breakfast dishes, and held her in his arms and kissed her.
“Good-bye, papa's blessing,” he said, and in spite of himself his voice broke. The man had reached the limit of his strength.
But Charlotte, who was neither curious nor suspicious, and was, besides, dazzled by her new happiness, only laughed. “Why, papa, I should think you were going away to stay a year!” said she.
Carroll laughed too, but his laugh was piteous. He kissed her again. “Well, good-bye, honey,” he said. Just as he was going out of the door he stopped, and said, as if it were a minor matter which he had nearly forgotten, “Oh, by-the-way, sweetheart, I want you, at exactly half-past nine, to go into the den and look in the third volume of the Dutch Republic, and see what you will find.”