Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
[Transcriber's Note: Underscores are used as delimiters for _italics_]
[Illustration: FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK.--_Page 18._]
NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 1892
Copyright, 1892 BY E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, NEW YORK _Frontispiece_
THE GREAT STEAMER BACKED OUT INTO THE RIVER 22
One day in the early spring, Alice Winter came home from school, and, after the usual question at the door, "Is mamma at home?" rushed upstairs, and found to her great surprise that her papa was at home, talking very earnestly to Mrs. Winter.
When Alice came into the room, Mr. Winter stopped talking, and she wondered very much what they could have been talking about so earnestly, as all she heard was her papa asking, "Do you think we had better take her with us?"
"Why, papa! What is the matter? Are you going away? Are you sick? What made you come home so early?" were the questions which Alice gave rapidly, without waiting for an answer.
Mr. Winter said, "Yes, dear, I am obliged to go to Nuremberg, Germany, on business immediately, and mamma is trying to make up her mind whether it is best for her to go with me. She does not like to leave you for so long a time, and we do not think it wise to take you with us, when you are getting on at school so nicely."
"O papa, please take me with you. I shall learn just as much on such a lovely trip as at school, and you know I can take care of mamma, and keep her from being lonely when you are busy. O papa, please ask mamma to let me go. I should be so unhappy to stay without you, even with dear Aunt Edith, and I know there is where you would send me."
"Alice, dear, go to your room and get ready for dinner, and leave us to talk it over," said Mr. Winter. "My dear little daughter knows that no matter which way we decide, it will be as we think is best for all of us. You know it is as hard for us to leave you as it will be for you to let us go."
Alice left the room without another word, with her heart beating very fast from the excitement of it all.
The thought of going to Europe across the great ocean was a very happy one to a bright girl of fifteen who was studying all the time about the places she would visit and the objects of interest she would see, if her papa would only decide to take her.