They all sat and waited for what was coming, quite unable to guess what proposition he was going to make.

“Helen and Roger are somewhat older and stand such upheavals a little better than you girls, so my plan doesn’t include them.”

“Just us three?” asked Ethel Brown.

“Just you three.  Here’s my scheme; see if you like it.  I have to go over to Boston to-morrow on a matter of business and it occurred to me that it would be a pleasant sail on the Sound and that you’d be interested in seeing the city—­”

“O—­o!” gasped Dorothy; “Cambridge and Longfellow’s house.”

“Concord and Lexington!” cried Ethel Brown.

“The Art Museum!” murmured Ethel Blue.

“And Bunker Hill Monument, and, of course, the Navy Yard especially for this daughter of a sailor,” and he nodded gayly at his granddaughter.

“Grandmother will go, to take you around when I have to attend to my business, and we can stay a day or two and come back fresh to attend to Mrs. Paterno’s affairs.  How does it strike you?”

Without any preliminary conference, the three girls flung their arms around his neck and hugged him heartily.

“Have you talked about it with Mother and Aunt Louise?” asked Ethel Brown.

“I’m armed with their permission.”

“I guess we were all worrying about Mrs. Paterno,” admitted Ethel Blue.  “This will be the strong grass seed that will clear up our minds so that we can help her better after we come back.”

“I think you’re the most magnificent Grandfather that ever was born!” exclaimed Ethel Brown, standing back and gazing admiringly at her ancestor.

“Thank you,” returned Mr. Emerson, bowing low, his hand on his heart, “I am quite overcome by such a wholesale tribute!”

“Had we better tell Mrs. Schuler about the embroidery class plan?” asked Dorothy.

“Run up to Rose House now and explain it to her and ask her to talk to the women about it while you are gone, and then when you get back she’ll have it all ready to start,” Mr. Emerson suggested.

The next twenty-four hours were full of excitement.  Each of the girls had only a small handbag to pack, but the selection of what should go into each bag seemed a matter of infinite importance.  The Ethels filled their bags twice before they were satisfied that they had not left out anything that would be wanted, and Dorothy confessed that she had first put in too much and then had gone to the other extreme, and that it had not been until after she had had a consultation with her mother that she had decided on just the number and kind of garments that she would need for a two-day trip to the Hub of the Universe.

“Why is it called that?” she asked of Ethel Brown.

“I asked Mother and she said that people from New York and other cities used to say that Bostonians thought that their town was the centre of civilization.  So they guyed it by calling it the ’Hub’.”