_O_ddly enough Edmonia had very little of the difficulty she had anticipated in securing Aunt Polly’s consent to the proposed trip. Perhaps the old lady’s opinions with respect to the detrimental effects of travel were held like her views on railroads and the rotundity of the earth, humorously rather than with seriousness. Perhaps she appreciated, better than she would admit, the advantages Dorothy was likely to reap from an introduction to a larger world. Perhaps she did not like the task set her of cramping Dorothy’s mind and soul to the mould of a marriage with young Jeff Peyton. Certain it is that she did not look forward to that fruition of her labors as Dorothy’s personal guardian with anything like pleasure. While she felt herself bound to carry out her instructions, she felt no alarm at the prospect of having their purpose defeated in the end by an enlargement of horizon which would prompt Dorothy to rebellion. Perhaps all these things, and perhaps something else. Perhaps Aunt Polly suspected the truth, and rejoiced in it. Who shall say? Who shall set a limit to the penetration of so shrewd a woman, after she has lived for more than half a century with her eyes wide open and her mind always quick in sympathy with those whom she loves? Whatever the reason of her complaisance may have been, she yielded quickly to Edmonia’s persuasions, offering only her general deprecation of travel as an objection and quickly brushing even that aside. “I can’t understand,” she said, “why people who are permitted to live and die in Virginia should want to go gadding about in less desirable places. But we’ve let the Yankees build railroads down here, and we must take the consequences. Everybody wants to travel nowadays and Dorothy is like all the rest, I suppose. Anyhow, you’ll be with her, Edmonia, and so she can’t come to any great harm, unless it’s true that the world is round. If that’s so, of course your ship will fall off when you get over on the other side of it.” “But Europe isn’t on the other side of it Aunt Polly, and besides I’ve been there twice already you know, and I didn’t fall off the earth either time.” “No, you were lucky, and maybe you’ll be lucky this time. Anyhow you have all made up your minds and I’ll interpose no objections.” It was by no means so easy to win Dorothy’s consent to the proposed journey. “I ought not to run away from my duty,” she said, in objection to a proposal which opened otherwise delightful prospects to her mind. “But it’s your duty to go, child,” Edmonia answered. “You need the trip and all the education it will give you. What is there for you to do here, anyhow?” “Why, Cousin Arthur might need me! You know he never tells lies, and he says I have really helped him to save people’s lives in this fever time.”