"Of course I do."

"Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced tour."

Hephzy laughed over her knitting.

"I guess," she said, "I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy.

You could afford, it, too--you know you could. But how could I go and leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'

clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been so--so sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without the other. I know certain sure _I_ shouldn't."

I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its absurdity. Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I realized that my main objection to the Campbell prescription had been that I must take it alone or with strangers. And now--

"Hephzy," I demanded, "would you go away--on a trip abroad--with me?"

She put down the knitting.

"Hosy Knowles!" she exclaimed. "WHAT are you talkin' about?"

"But would you?"

"I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely that--where are you goin'?"

I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the house.

When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the floor at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.

"Hosy," she demanded, "where--"

I interrupted. "Hephzy," said I, "I have been to the station to send a telegram."

"A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?"

Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.

"No one is dead, Hephzy," I replied. "In fact it is barely possible that someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week."

Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the circular.

"Why--why--what--?" she gasped.

"On a steamer leaving next week," I repeated. "You want to travel, Hephzy. Jim says I must. So we'll travel together."

She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to convince her. But when at last she began to believe--at least to the extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next remark was characteristic.

"But I--I can't go, Hosy," declared Hephzibah. "I CAN'T. Who--who would take care of the cat and the hens?"

CHAPTER IV

In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together

The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago.

Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and tame compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time, that week was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation for Hephzibah, and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me. For us both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.

Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not "raving distracted," which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all and, second, to going on such short notice.

"I don't think I'd better, Hosy," she said. "You're awful good to ask me and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it, even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me."

I smiled. "When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy," I replied, "I shall be on my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to be ashamed of me."

"The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM."

Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:

"On a fine morning at break of day, When the ice has all gone out of the bay, And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring, Then all hands start to go scallop-ING."

In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you should put a strong emphasis on the final "ing." Joshua always did and the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There are eighteen more verses.

"I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy," I repeated. "You know it perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go."

"But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd starve; you know they would."

"Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And I will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it."

"And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear."

"Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York."

"But--"

There were innumerable "buts." I answered them as best I could. Also I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said travel was my only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must agree to travel with me.

"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go abroad," I added, as a final clincher.

"I know it. I know I have. But--but now when it comes to really goin' I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here in town and one from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not, Hosy. I--I'm frightened, I guess."

Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.

"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth," it read. "Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?

Write particulars."

The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful expensive." All that money could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began preparations.

I did not write the "particulars" requested. I had a feeling that Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it, I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him there. Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had selected.

His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my "foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. "Travel light," he wrote. "You can buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you reach New York." But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what port she was to sail.