"Jerusalem!" she repeated. "Why on earth do you wish to know that? I don't know myself, precisely. It is across the ocean somewhere in Asia, you know. Why do you care, Bud, where it is?"
"I've got to go there," said Bud, with simple dignity.
Miss Ansted's laugh rang out merrily.
"That is an undertaking!" she said, gayly. "When do you intend to start? and what is the object of the journey, I wonder?" She felt sure now that Bud was little less than an idiot.
But Bud had another question to ask. His face was grave, almost dismayed. "Across the ocean!" That sentence appalled. He had heard of the ocean, and of a storm on it, and a shipwreck. A wandering sailor once told in his hearing a fearful story of wreck and peril. Yet, be it recorded that the boy, though appalled, did not for one moment recede from his fixed resolved to start, and go as far as he could. That Comforter he meant to find. It had taken such hold of his heart that he knew he could never give it up again. This was his next timidly-put question:
"Did you ever go there, Miss Ansted?"
"I never did," she answered, laughing still, and very curious now to know what queer project poor Bud had on his mind. "Why do you want to go, Bud?"
The answer was direct and grave.