"Ah, you must judge that for yourself," she said. "Listen—and, first of all, remember that we have evidently missed a letter. There is quite a gap between this and the last one we had from him, and he speaks of a letter he posted us from Edinburgh—but it hasn't come. However, I don't know that it matters much."
"Not matter? Why, we may never get it!" cried Dick, wide-eyed. English mail day was the chief day of all to them. To miss one of father's letters was a calamity not lightly to be borne. Yet here was this mother smiling over it.
"No—nothing matters much," she said, and rumpled his hair suddenly. "Listen, old son."
"... So it's nearly over, the long, hard separation from you two dear ones, and I needn't worry that this time I've only a moment to send a note. I've booked my berth in the Ohio, and have none too much time now to attend to all sorts of odds and ends before I sail——"
"Mother!" exploded Dick. "When?"
"Be quiet!" said his mother, laughing. "There's more yet."
"——and fix up business finally. I can't realise that I'll see you and the boy so soon; it's too good to be true. And I don't mean to wait for it one day longer than I have to. We're due at Fremantle on 27th August. I think you said Dick's term ended about the end of August, and then he'll have three weeks' holiday for me to make his acquaintance. (Snort from Dick.) Well, it would mean cutting into school a bit, but the boy is only a youngster after all, and I don't think it would matter"—here the little mother suddenly began to read very fast, and the words tumbled out of her mouth so quickly that Dick could hardly have caught them if he had not been listening with all his ears and his eyes as well, listening, kneeling at her feet, with his gaze fixed on her face, with its rose-flush, and its dancing eyes and lips that trembled ever so little—"if he missed a few classes; what do you say to hurrying off to town, kidnapping him from Dr. Gurdon, and bringing both my belongings across to Fremantle to meet me?"
"Ow!" said Dick faintly, his mouth and eyes round circles of amazement and delight. "Fremantle! Oh, mother-est, are we going?"
His mother rumpled his hair all over again.
"Going!" said she. "Do you think we could refuse an invitation like that, Dickie?"