"On the ocean where the boats go 'cross and run right over a whale. Don't you remember you showed me them pictures of spout whales in a book, Molly? Father says they comes right up by the ship and you can hear 'em shoot water and maybe a iceberg, too. Which do you want to ketch' most, Molly, a iceberg or a whale?" His eager eyes demanded instant decision on my part of the nature of capture I preferred. My mind quickly reverted to those two ponderous and intense epistles I had got within the hour, and I lay back in my chair and laughed until I felt almost merry. "The iceberg, Billy, every time," I said at last. I just can't manage whales, especially if they are ardent, which word means intense. I like _icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one." "I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe father will let you put a rope and a long hook in his trunk to try with, if your clothes go into mine. His is a heap the biggest anyway, and Nurse Tilly said he ought to put my things in his, but I cried, and then he went upstairs and got out that little one for me. Come and see 'em." "What do you mean, Billy?" I asked, while a sudden fear shot all over me like lightning. "You're just playing go-away, aren't you?" "No, I'm not playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and father is going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. Father ast me about it this morning, and I told him all right, and you could come with us if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you if you was busy and couldn't come, and I told him you would put things down and come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you, and you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all drawn up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of it, and a cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery at what I felt was coming down upon me. Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feel deadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Dr. Moore's surgery, where he was just taking off his gloves and dust-coat. "What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go and take Billy away from me?" I demanded, looking at him with what must have been such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he came close to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white and quiet at my attack, and he waited to answer for a long horrible minute that pulled me apart like one of those inquisition machines they used to torture women with when they didn't know any better modern way to do it.