"We mean to stay with you, if you want us so long, until the fifth. We have a few excursions to make yet; but we shall guide ourselves so as to reach Omocqua at the appointed time."
"Meet us there," cried Harry. "Meet us there in fifteen days from the time we leave you. Let us keep the nineteenth of April there together."
My mother, who had not hitherto taken any part in the conversation, spoke now to express her warm approbation of the plan. This was all that was wanting. The project was ratified. My happiness was freed again from the alloy of insecurity which had begun to mingle with it.
The Doctor divined my feeling, and smiling pleasantly,—"Our leave-taking will not be so hard; it will be au revoir, not adieu."
Harry was the first to leave the breakfast-table. He had made acquaintance with Karl and Fritz that morning, and had promised to help them on a drag they were getting up for hauling brush. He was to join us again in two hours, and we were to have a walk to Ludlow's Woods.
"He has been to the post-office this morning!" cried the Doctor, as soon as Harry was out of hearing. It was evident that my mother's unacceptable suggestion still rested on his mind. "He has been to the post-office: that was it! You remember he asked you last night how far to the nearest one? The first thing he does, when he arrives in a place, is to inquire about the means of forwarding letters."
"How he must be missed in his home!" my mother said.
"Ah, indeed! He is an only son. But, contrary to the custom of only sons, he thinks as much of his home as his home does of him. He has not failed to write a single day of the thirty-five we have been travelling together. His letters cannot have been received regularly of late; but that is no fault of ours."
"His parents must be very anxious, when he is so far from them," said my mother.
"He knows how to take care of himself,—and of me too," the Doctor added, laughing. "I thought that on this journey I was to have charge of him, but it turned out quite the other way. He assumed the business department from the first. I acquiesced, thinking he would learn something, but expecting to be obliged to come to his aid from time to time. I think it wrong for a man to submit to imposition. I never do. But Harry, open-hearted and lavish,—I thought anybody could take him in. I did not find that anybody wanted to."