never had a day's illness."

"It is not your strength, Tom; I shall have no fears about your breaking
down; on the contrary, I should say that a life such as uncle wrote
about, must be wonderfully healthy. But you seem so young to make such a
long journey, and you may have to travel about in such rough places and
among such rough men before you can find Uncle Harry."

"I expect that I shall get on a great deal easier than a man would," Tom
said confidently. "Fellows might play tricks with a grown-up fellow who
they see is a stranger and not up to things, and might get into quarrels
with him, but no one is likely to interfere with a boy. No, I don't
think that there is anything in that, Carry,--the only real difficulty
is in going away so far from you, and perhaps being away for a long
time."

"Well, Tom," the girl said after another pause, "it seems very terrible,
but I own that I can see nothing better for you. There is no way that
you can earn money here, and I am sure we would rather think of you as
mining and hunting with uncle, than as sitting as a sort of boy-clerk in
some dark little office in London or Portsmouth. It is no worse than
going to sea anyhow, and after all you may, as uncle says, hit on a rich
mine and come back with a fortune. Let us be going home. I can hardly
bear to think of it now, but I will tell Janet, and will talk about it
again this evening after the little ones have gone to bed."

Tom had the good sense to avoid any expression of satisfaction. He gave
Carry's hand a silent squeeze, and as they walked across the common
talked over their plans for setting to work to get pupils, and said no
word that would give her a hint of the excitement he felt at the thought