“‘Now, Aunt Bessie, you see I have to go,’ I persuaded. ‘Jane can’t help being afraid—and I didn’t know how to be afraid—really, I don’t know what to be afraid of. Let Elsie go with me, and we’ll do everything ourselves—have the house all in order for you to-morrow morning, and have the most glorious time we ever had in our lives. My Cousin Jennie isn’t fifteen, and she stayed a week over alone in the country while Uncle and Auntie were away. Oh, _do_ let us go, Aunt Bessie.’
“‘Somebody must, I suppose,’ half consented Aunt Bessie, who was growing whiter every moment; ‘Elsie, are you brave enough to go with Marion?’
“‘Yes, mamma,’ said nine-year-old Elsie, in her grave little way, ‘_but I don’t know what the brave is for_.’
“‘I’m glad you don’t,’ smiled her mother. ‘Well, Jane—I hope I am not doing wrong—fix two boxes of lunch—and, you know you take the train to Paterson and then the horse-cars to Hanover—I will give you five dollars, Marion, you will have to take a carriage at Hanover—but you know all about it—you went with me to look at the house—and you know where to have the furniture put as I told you that day—and you can get things at the store—half a mile off—Jane, you will have to keep Rob and baby—Marion, I don’t know _what_ your mother will say—it’s well there was a load of things left so that I may have a bed to-night—’
“During this prologue my feet were dancing, and my fingers rubbing each other impatiently, I was so afraid she would end with a sufficient reason for not allowing us to go. I could not believe that we were really off until we sat in the train, each with a huge, stuffed lunch-box, and I with five dollars in my pocketbook and my head confused with ten thousand parting directions, among which was, many times repeated: ‘Be sure to _ask_ that girl to stay all night with you.’
“At the terminus at Hanover we got out and stood and looked around. Elsie was a little thing, but she was wise, and I liked to ask her advice.
“‘Aunt Bessie found a horse and a carriage at the blacksmith’s shop that day, didn’t she?’
“This was hardly asking advice, but Elsie brightened, and answered deliberately: ‘We walked on a canal-boat, then, to the other side, for the bridge was being built.’