“I hope not, dear one,” he said gently; “I have given it all up, and I have no regrets, but,—”
“Yes,” seriously, “I understand.”
Robert had drawn a chair up beside her, and was holding and caressing her hand. “Tell me, little girl, where you would like to go, when we leave the world behind us.”
Her face assumed a prim look, as she replied: “I have always been taught that if I mended my ways and became very, very good, I would go to Heaven.”
Robert laughed. “But in the meantime? I would like to travel more or less for a year, especially as Mother can be with us part of the time. After that, I will come home and go into some kind of business.”
Meg’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Won’t it be fine!” she exclaimed; “I have always longed to see the world. I want to view the universe from the summit of Pike’s Peak. I would like to gather oranges in Florida, to be prodigal with flowers in California. It is my desire to be made dumb by the magnificence of Yellowstone Park,—temporarily dumb, you understand,—and deaf by the roar of Niagara!”
“And you have never been to any of these places?”
“No, but I once went to Tecumseh! That’s fifteen miles from Valencia,” she replied confidentially.
Robert laughed. Her voice became softly reminiscent, as she continued: “I used to ‘pretend’ that I was traveling. I wandered through quaint old streets in the unfrequented northern parts of Great Britain. I spent whole weeks in that little town with its one street, paved with cobblestones, leading straight down to the sea. I reveled in the strong, salt air, and the odor of the fish, freshly caught,—though I never could bear to smell them in a meat market in Valencia!” and her small nose went up at the recollection.
“And did you never visit France, Germany, or Italy?”