“Because you want an occasional good shaking.”
“You see, my difficulty is this,” he began again, without noticing the last speech. “When I tell you what I want, I'm afraid you'll only laugh at me and refuse my request.”
“It won't hurt you much, poor old Tom, if I do laugh.”
“No, perhaps not—I never thought of that.” Then he proceeded to explain that he had made up his mind to spend two or three years in seeing the world, or at all events that portion of it to be found outside of England; and the first year he wished to spend on the Continent. Alone he feared that he would have a miserable time of it; but if his sister would only consent to accompany him, then he thought it would be most enjoyable; for he would have her society, and her experience of travel, and knowledge of German and French, would also smooth the way. “Now, Mary,” he concluded—it had taken him half an hour to say this—“don't say No just yet. I know I shall be an awful weight for you to drag about, I'll be so helpless at hotels and stations and such places. But there will perhaps be one advantage to you. I know you spend rather freely, and your income is not too large, and I dare say you have exceeded it a little. Now, if you will give a year to me, and have your house shut up or let in the meantime, there would be a year's income saved to put you straight again.”
“That means, Tom, that you would pay all my expenses while we were abroad?”
“Well, sis, I couldn't well take you away from your own life and pleasures and ask you to pay your own. That would be a strangely one-sided proposal to make.”
“I must take time to think about it.”
“That's a good girl. And, Mary, what would it cost to put this girl with some family where she would have a pleasant home and be taught for a year?”
“About sixty or seventy pounds, I suppose. Then there would be her clothing, and pocket-money, and incidental expenses—altogether a hundred pounds, I dare say.”
“And you would let me pay this also?”