"Why, leaving the only world you know. There, you see, papa and mamma
are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the rate of ever
so many miles an hour."

"Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea."

"Away from everything and everybody we know. I do really think it is
like dying,--don't you, Mr. Mann?" Mae turned abruptly and faced the
young man by her side.

"People aren't apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen," he replied,
coolly. "If you were all by yourself, it would be more like it, I
suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own world along with
you, and really--"

"And really pity is the very last article I have any use for. You are
right. I was only sorry for the moment. 'Eastward Ho' is a very happy
cry. How differently we shall all take Europe," she continued, in
a moment. "There is Albert, I honestly believe he will live in his
Baedeker just because he can see no further than the covers of a book.
You need not laugh, for it is a fact that people confined for years to
a room can't see beyond its limits when they are taken out into broader
space, and I don't see why it shouldn't be the same with a man who lives
in his books as Albert does."

"He sees the world in his books," said Mr. Mann, with a little spirit.

"He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," replied Mae, grandiloquently,
"and Edith--"