“I wish Arthur or Ted were back,” said Mr Waldron at dinner. “One of them might have driven me out to—” but before he said more, Jerry interrupted him.
“Papa, mightn’t I?” he exclaimed. “I really can drive—at least I am sure I could drive old Dolly.”
His father looked at him doubtfully.
“It isn’t really the driving so much as the waiting for me. I don’t like to take Sam out on Saturday evening—he makes it an excuse for not getting things tidied up. But I hardly like to take you alone, Gervais, my boy; you see if any little thing went wrong while you were waiting for me—it isn’t as if you could jump down quickly.”
Jerry’s face sobered down, but he said nothing.
“Papa,” exclaimed Charlotte eagerly, “I’ll tell you what. Take me too—we can all three pack in the dog-cart—you’ll see, and then if any one had to jump down, I could. It would be such fun, and Jerry hasn’t been out all the afternoon. Mamma, do say we may.”
Mamma smiled. Her impulse was always on the side of “you may”—perhaps almost too much so.
“Are you going far, Edward?” she asked her husband.
“Out beyond Gretham—as far as—Silverthorns,” he replied, with the slightest possible, not so much hesitation as slackening of speech before the last word. “I have no objection—none whatever,” he went on, speaking quickly, “to the children coming with me, if you think it can’t hurt them.”
“I should so like to go. I haven’t been so far as Silverthorns for—ages,” said Charlotte eagerly still.