seems such a cowardly thing to run away and leave all the burden upon
your shoulders, yours and Janet's, though I know it will be principally
on yours; but what else is there to do? It was not for my own sake that
I wanted before to go, but I did not see what there was for me to do
here even when I grew up. Still, as mother said it would break her heart
if I went away, of course there was an end of it for the time, though I
have always thought it would be something to fall back upon if, when I
got to eighteen or nineteen, nothing else turned up, which seemed to me
very likely would be the case. Certainly, if it came to a choice between
that and enlisting, I should choose that: and now it seems to me the
only thing to be done."

"It is such a long way off, Tom," the girl said in a tone of deep pain;
"and you know when people get away so far they seem to forget those at
home and give up writing. We had not heard from uncle for ten years when
that letter came."

"There would be no fear of my forgetting you, Carry. I would write to
you whenever I got a chance."

"But even going out there does not seem to lead to anything, Tom. Uncle
has been away twenty-five years, and he does not seem to have made any
money at all."

"Oh, but then he owned in his letter, Carry, that it was principally his
own fault. He said he had made a good sum several times at mining, and
chucked it away; but that next time he strikes a good thing he was
determined to keep what he made and to come home to live upon it. I
sha'n't chuck it away if I make it, but shall send every penny home that
I can spare."