“I am going to New York,” he said, not giving me time to inquire into his strange proceeding.

I laughed.  Tim was joking.  This was some odd prank.  He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse:  for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff.  For the first time I had forgotten the post-prandial pipe, and undismayed by the horrors of the famine in India or the tribulations of Sister Flora Martin, journeyed up the road to sit at Mary’s side.

“Over the mountain, eh, Tim?” I laughed.  “And is Tip going?”

My brother caught my meaning, but he did not smile.

“Honest,” he said.  “I am going to New York.”

“To New York!” I cried.  My crutches clattered to the floor as I sank into my chair.

“Yes,” said Tim, speaking so quietly that I knew it was the truth.  “Mr. Weston has given me a position in his store.  It’s a tea importing concern, and he owns it, though he doesn’t spend much time at his business.”

“I didn’t think you’d leave me alone.”  The words were hardly spoken till I regretted them.  I had spoken in spite of my better self, for what right had I to stand between my brother and a broader life?  When I had gone away to see the world, he had plodded on patiently in the narrow valley to keep a home for me.  Now that I was back, it was justly his turn to go beyond the mountains and learn something more than the dull routine of the farm and the sleepy village.

“I hate to leave you, Mark,” he said.  “But you have felt as I feel about getting away and seeing something.  Still, if you really want me to stay, I’ll give it up.  But you are a good deal to blame.  You have told me of what you saw when you were in the army.  You have showed me that there are bigger things in this world than plodding after a plough, and more exciting chases than those after foxes.  I want to do more than sit on a nail-keg in the store and discuss big events.  I want to have a little part in them myself—­you understand.”

“Yes, Tim,” said I, “you are right, and I’ll get along first rate.”

“That’s the way to talk,” he cried cheerfully, slapping me on the shoulder.  “You won’t be half as lonely here as I shall down there in a strange city; and when you clean away the supper dishes and light your pipe and think of me, I’ll be lighting mine and thinking of you and——­” He stopped.  Captain had trotted in, and was sitting close by, looking first at one and then at the other of us quizzically.  “You’ll have Captain,” added Tim, laughing, “and then by and by, when I am making money, you and Captain will come down to the city and we’ll all smoke our pipes together—­eh, Captain?”

The hound leaped up and Tim caught his forepaws and the two went dancing around the room until a long-drawn howl warned us that such bipedic capers were not to the dog’s liking.