"Well, after Carl and I go to college I am going to study medicine. By that time Father will have left the navy, I hope, and we will all live here together, and I'll practise."

"Perhaps there will be an office for you back of Dora's store," said Carl.

"I'd like to write books," said Bess. "Beautiful stories that everybody will want to read. Then I'll make lots of money and build hospitals and do ever so much good."

"The hospitals will be for Ikey to practise in, I suppose, my great and good cousin," remarked Aleck, with a profound bow.

"I mean to be a judge," announced Carl, who was next. "Now, Aleck."

"I am going to try for West Point next year. Father has given his consent, and--well, I'll be a general."

"I don't see how you can unless there is a war," said Ikey.

"Perhaps there'll be one then, and if I am wounded I can go to Bess's hospital and have you practise on me."

"Louise, you are the last; what n.o.ble ambition have you?"

"I think I'll ill.u.s.trate Bess's books and help Dora keep store," she said, laughing.

A knock at the door interrupted just then, and Uncle William's cheery face appeared. "It is so late I must not stop," he said; "but I ran away from a political meeting to wish my little girl many happy returns."

"There is to be another wedding in the family," said Mrs. Howard, entering the library one day with some hyacinths in her hand.

"Do you mean it really? I did not know there was anybody to get married but Cousin Helen," Bess exclaimed.

Carl looked up from a weighty volume he was consulting. "That is easy to guess; it is Joanna, of course."

"Is it Jo, Auntie?"

"Yes, she confided it to me a few minutes ago. It will be in June, and Patrick Loughlin is the happy man."

"I should think she would rather live with us, but there is no accounting for taste," said Bess, as she went to find Louise and tell the news.

"I can't imagine what ails Ikey; he is as cross as a bear," remarked Carl, closing his book with a bang.

"Perhaps he is worrying over examinations," Aunt Zelie suggested.

Her nephew laughed. "That would not be like Ikey; and then he has done finely this term, so that there will not be a bit of trouble about his pa.s.sing."

"I sincerely hope that there is not another of my boys in trouble,"

she said anxiously.

"Oh! it can't be any thing really, only I never knew him to be snappish. I thought I'd mention it, for you might get it out of him if you happen to see him."

About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Howard closed the front door behind her and came out into the pleasant spring air. As she reached the gate she caught sight of a light-brown head in one of the third-story windows across the street, and acting on a sudden impulse she made a signal.

The window went up promptly, and going over she called: "Can't you come with me out to Neffler's? I'd like some company. Never mind, of course, if you are busy."

"Thank you, I am not busy; I'll come," and in two minutes Ikey was beside her.

It was easy to see he was not quite himself. Usually he would have been bubbling over with gayety at the honor of being chosen a companion for a long walk to the florist's, but now the conversation was all on one side.

Mrs. Howard did her best to be entertaining, and took no notice of his evident preoccupation until she had given her orders and they turned toward home; then she said: "I have been waiting in the hope that you would tell me what is troubling you, but now I shall have to ask; Carl and I are both wondering what has happened."

Ikey looked very much surprised, being under the delusion that he was concealing his feelings perfectly.

"I am not in any trouble," he began, "though I am bothered about something, and I oughtn't to be; that is what makes it so bad."

His companion looked sympathetic and waited for further revelations.

"You see," Ikey went on, "I wrote to Papa about going to school with Carl next winter and to Yale the year after, and he was willing and so was Grandfather; it seemed all settled. I knew they would be back in June, certainly Mamma and Alice, so we could spend the summer together. Then I thought, of course, they would be settled somewhere where I could go for my holidays, but now all my plans are spoiled: Papa has to go to the Pacific coast."

If his father had been sent to Siberia, Ikey's tone could not have been more tragic. Mrs. Howard could hardly help smiling.

"I don't quite understand yet," she said. "Does that mean that you will still be separated from your father and mother? or--"

"That is what makes me feel so mean," he burst out. "Of course I want to be with them, and yet I can't bear to go to California, and that is what I must do. Give up going with Carl, and go to some horrid old university out there. They seem to think I shall like it. Mamma is pleased because she used to live in San Francisco, and Grandfather thinks he will go out too. There is no help for it."

"Then you will have to make the best of it, will you not? It is perfectly natural to feel as you do, after setting your heart on the other plan, and I am sure it does not mean any lack of affection for your father and mother."

"I am glad you think it doesn't," he said, in a relieved tone, for he had been torturing himself with the thought that he was a most unnatural son.

"I hate to think of going so far away and never seeing any of you again, when you have been so good to me." His voice faltered.

"I should feel very badly if you could leave us without caring, after all our good times together. Carl will be dreadfully disappointed, but as for not meeting again, California is not so far away as that, and it is not likely your father will be there for the rest of his life." She spoke with great cheerfulness, not daring to be too sympathetic.

"I'll try not to hate it so," Ikey said, bracing up a little.

Mrs. Howard insisted on taking him home to dinner, and when Carl came in he found him holding a skein of wool for Bess while Louise read aloud, and if not quite his usual gay self he was at least more cheerful than he had been for days.

The storm which arose when his friends heard of the change in his plans was most comforting. Carl declared he didn't half care about going to college himself if Ikey couldn't go, and Bess remarked sorrowfully that everything would be different next winter, with Cousin Helen married and the boys all away.

"Why, Ikey and Cousin Helen are going to the same place!" exclaimed Louise, "and we are going to see her, so we'll see him too." Here was a gleam of brightness, and Carl added, "And of course when you get to be a doctor you will come back to practise in Bess's hospital."

When letters came from his mother and father, telling more fully their plans, and overflowing with the pleasure of being all together again, Ikey would not have been his warm-hearted self if he had not been glad. Dear as were the friendships which he had made in the three years spent at his grandfather's, family ties were stronger.

Old Mr. Ford said he did not know what he should do without his grandson, and talked seriously of accepting his son's invitation to try a winter in California.

It was finally arranged that Ikey should meet his parents in New York sometime about the middle of July, and as that was more than two months distant, and the present full of interesting events, as Louise expressed it, he put aside his disappointment and was as merry as ever.

CHAPTER XXV.

AUNT ZeLIE.