"I am sorry you are going away."
"You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going. Why are you sorry?"
"Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become so used to you, that somehow I don't seem to know what to do with a day without you; and then the cars may run off the track and kill you or hurt you, or you may get the smallpox, or a great many things may happen."
"And suppose some of these terrible things should happen,the last, for instance,what would you do?"
"I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once."
Mr. Clerron laughed.
"So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of me, and get me well again?"
"No, because I should then be in danger of taking it myself and giving it to papa and mamma; besides, they would not let me, I am quite sure."
"So you love your papa and mamma better than"
He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
"Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma, somehow, seems strong of herself, and don't depend upon me; but papa,oh, you don't know how he is to me! I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I have, I cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so."