Your mind has
been fully opened to the charm of the wilderness, and that is something
that city people seldom understand. You were never so earnest before.
What is it? Are you developing new traits?"
Of course I laughed at this, and yet it seemed to me also as if something
were changed. I didn't quite know what Daddy meant, because it is
sometimes difficult to know whether he is jesting or in earnest. He once
told me that this was a rather good business asset.
"Well, Daddy," I finally said. "I am afraid you will have to take me
away, or I shall be falling so much in love with Sweetapple Cove that I
will never want to leave it again."
"We will leave to-morrow, if you want to," he said, in a rather abrupt
way.
Do you know, Aunt Jennie, that when he said that I just gasped a little.
It suddenly seemed so strange that we would have to go away soon, and
that I might never see Sweetapple Cove again, and those dear Barnetts,
and all the people, for the whole lot of them appear to have a way of
stealing into one's heart.
"I don't really want to go at once, Daddy," I told him. "It will take a
few days to get used to the idea, and to get everything ready. And Dr.
Grant says that very soon you will be able to walk without a cane. Do let
us put it off for another week."
Daddy smiled vaguely, and finally nodded his consent. He is always so
good about trying to please me. So I went and got my knitting and sat
down at the foot of the big chair.
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