"Nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous. "What cock-and-bull story's this? I won't have my feelings worked upon!"
"It's true, Doctor Jim. I'm to go with Uncle Bob, next week!" said Barbara, very soberly.
"But you sha'n't go! We can't spare our bad little girl. You're too young, Barby, for that wicked city down there. We need you here, to keep us from getting too good. You sha'n't go, that's all! You see what John Pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?"
"I must, Doctor Jim!" answered Barbara. "Aunt Hitty and Uncle Bob have both decided on that. I feel homesick, sort of, already, at the thought of it. And I know I shall miss you all just horribly. But, oh, I do want to go, after all. It's all so gay and mysterious to me, and I know I'll have such fun. And it will be so lovely, when I'm tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it! Won't it?"
"Well! Well! I suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed Doctor Jim. "Thank Heaven, you're not going, Mehitable, dear lady!"
"I'm glad you're not going, Jim,—either to New York or to Hartford!" said Mistress Mehitable, with a little laugh. Then she held out her hand to him, flushing softly.
"It would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, Mehitable, were you to bid me stay!" said Doctor Jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had held out. Then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily turned again to Barbara, saying:
"By the way, sweetheart, Bobby Gault is in New York, is he not,—eh, what? He will be glad to see you again, perhaps! It is possible he may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?"
But Barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind.
"I don't know that I'll make things pleasant for Robert," she answered, thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings and things!"