now, and then we shall stay here a little time, and _then_, and _then_,
I shall go to school."

The last words were enunciated with immense importance, as he stopped
his impromptu dance before the chair where his sober cousin Fanny was
patiently working at her crochet; but she did not look so much affected
by the announcement as the boy seemed to demand, so he again exclaimed,
"And then, Miss Fanny, I shall go to school."

"Well, Eric," said Fanny, raising her matter-of-fact quiet face from her
endless work, "I doubt, dear, whether you will talk of it with quite as
much joy a year hence."

"O ay, Fanny, that's just like you to say so; you're always talking and
prophesying; but never mind, I'm going to school, so hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!" and he again began his capering,--jumping over the chairs,
trying to vault the tables, singing and dancing with an exuberance of
delight, till, catching a sudden sight of his little spaniel Flo, he
sprang through the open window into the garden, and disappeared behind
the trees of the shrubbery; but Fanny still heard his clear, ringing,
silvery laughter, as he continued his games in the summer air.

She looked up from her work after he had gone, and sighed. In spite of
the sunshine and balm of the bright weather, a sense of heaviness and
foreboding oppressed her. Everything looked smiling and beautiful, and
there was an almost irresistible contagion in the mirth of her young
cousin, but still she could not help feeling sad. It was not merely that
she would have to part with Eric, "but that bright boy," thought Fanny,
"what will become of him? I have heard strange things of schools; oh, if
he should be spoilt and ruined, what misery it would be. Those baby