Dorothy started; but she had resolved rather sullenly that people would have to wait a long while before they should hear another word from her.
"Yes, sir," assented Donald, quickly. It would be glorious to go, he thought, and actually be a boarding-school boy, belonging to a crack base-ball club, a debating society, perhaps even a secret society; to get boxes of fruit and cake from home, and share them with his room-mates; maybe have a fight or two, for a fellow must hold his own, you know;—but then how strange it would be to live without Dorry! Oh, if she only were a boy!
DONALD'S THOUGHTS.
"I'd come home on Thanksgiving and Christmas?" asked Don, following up a rather lonesome feeling.
"Oh, yes! but you're not off yet, my boy. The fact is, I did think seriously of sending you this autumn, and I even looked up a few good places, intending to make a selection. But there's no special hurry. This boarding-school business has its uncomfortable side. It breaks up a household, and makes little sisters lonesome. Doesn't it, Dorry?"
Dorry couldn't speak now, though she tried, and Mr. George considerately went on: "Besides, there's another, a very good reason, why we should wait awhile. You are needed here, Donald, just now."
"Needed here?" thought Dorry. "I should say so!" Uncle might as well remark that the sunshine, or the sky, or the air was needed here as to say that Don was needed. A big tear gathered under her lashes—"Besides, she was no more his little sister than he was her little brother. They were just even halves of each other—so now." And the tear went back.
Meantime, Uncle's remarks flowed slowly on, like a deep stream passing between two banks—one with its sunny leaves and blossoms all astir in the breeze, the other bending, casting its image in the stream, and so going on with it in a closer companionship.