“Ah!” he said.

It would certainly solve one of the difficulties.  The place was very far away certainly, but then it was Esther’s old home, and she had not seen it since her marriage.  She would grow strong again there very quickly.

“Oh, and Judy, too.”

“Ah-h-h!” he said.

Two of the lines smoothed themselves carefully from his brow.

“And Meg, because I mentioned she was looking pale.”

The Captain placed the cigar back in the case.  He forgot there was such a thing as gout.

“The invitation could not have been more opportune,” he said.  “Accept by all means; nothing could have been better; and it is an exceedingly healthy climate.  The other children can—–­”

“Oh, Father expressly stipulates for Pip as well, because he is a scamp.”

“Upon my word, Esther, your parents have a large enough fund of philanthropy.  Anyone else included in the invitation?”

“Only Nell and Bunty and Baby.  Oh, and Mother says if you can run up at any time for a few days shooting you know without her telling you how pleased she will be to see you.”

“The hospitality of squatters is world-farmed, but this breaks all previous records, Esther.”  The Captain got up and stretched himself with the air of a man released from a nightmare.  “Accept by all means—­every one of you.  On their own heads be the results; but I’m afraid Yarrahappini will be a sadder and wiser place before the month is over.”

But just how much sadder or how much wiser he never dreamed.

CHAPTER XV Three Hundred Miles in the Train

They filled a whole compartment—­at least there was one seat vacant, but people seemed shy of taking it after a rapid survey of them all.

The whole seven of them, and only Esther as bodyguard—­Esther—­in a pink blouse an sailor hat, with a face as bright and mischievous as Pip’s own.

The Captain had come to see them off, with Pat to look after the luggage.  He had bought the tickets—­two whole ones for Esther and Meg, and four halves for the others.  Baby was not provided with even a half, much to her private indignation—­it was an insult to her four years and a half, she considered, to go free like the General.

But the cost of those scraps of pasteboard had made the Captain look unhappy:  he only received eighteenpence change out of the ten pounds he had tendered; for Yarrahappini was on the borders of the Never-Never Land.

He spent the eighteenpence on illustrated papers—­Scraps, Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday, Comic Cuts, Funny Folks, and the like, evidently having no very exalted opinion of the literary tastes of his family; and he provided Esther with a yellow-back—­ on which was depicted a lady in a green dress fainting in the arms of a gentleman attired in purple, and Meg with Mark Twain’s “Jumping Frog”, because he had noticed a certain air of melancholy in her eyes lately.