“No, no!” he entreated.  “It might wake Lottie, and—­and—­Good-night, Ellen.”

“Can you go to sleep now, Boyne?”

“Oh yes.  I’m all right.  Good-night.”

“Good-night, then.”

Borne stooped over and kissed her, and went to the door.  He came back and asked, “You don’t think it was silly, or anything, for me to get it?”

“No, indeed!  It’s just what you will like to have when you get home.  We’ve all seen her so often.  I’ll put it in my trunk, and nobody shall know about it till we’re safely back in Tuskingum.”

Boyne sighed deeply.  “Yes, that’s what I meant.  Good-night.”

“Good-night, Boyne.”

“I hope I haven’t waked you up too much?”

“Oh no.  I can get to sleep easily again.”

“Well, good-night.”  Boyne sighed again, but not so deeply, and this time he went out.

XXII.

Mrs. Kenton woke with the clear vision which is sometimes vouchsafed to people whose eyes are holden at other hours of the day.  She had heard Boyne opening and shutting Ellen’s door, and her heart smote her that he should have gone to his sister with whatever trouble he was in rather than come to his mother.  It was natural that she should put the blame on her husband, and “Now, Mr. Kenton,” she began, with an austerity of voice which he recognized before he was well awake, “if you won’t take Boyne off somewhere to-day, I will.  I think we had better all go.  We have been here a whole fortnight, and we have got thoroughly rested, and there is no excuse for our wasting our time any longer.  If we are going to see Holland, we had better begin doing it.”

The judge gave a general assent, and said that if she wanted to go to Flushing he supposed he could find some garden-seeds there, in the flower and vegetable nurseries, which would be adapted to the climate of Tuskingum, and they could all put in the day pleasantly, looking round the place.  Whether it was the suggestion of Tuskingum in relation to Flushing that decided her against the place, or whether she had really meant to go to Leyden, she now expressed the wish, as vividly as if it were novel, to explore the scene of the Pilgrims’ sojourn before they sailed for Plymouth, and she reproached him for not caring about the place when they both used to take such an interest in it at home.

“Well,” said the judge, “if I were at home I should take an interest in it here.”

This provoked her to a silence which he thought it best to break in tacit compliance with her wish, and he asked, “Do you propose taking the whole family and the appurtenances?  We shall be rather a large party.”

“Ellen would wish to go, and I suppose Mr. Breckon.  We couldn’t very well go without them.”

“And how about Lottie and that young Trannel?”

“We can’t leave him out, very well.  I wish we could.  I don’t like him.”