body; especially as
Grandpa and Grandma Dinsmore decline to return in the _Dolphin_. They
go from here to Philadelphia by rail, to visit her relations there or
in that region. So you need not hesitate about it for a moment, and,"
glancing at her brother, "you will have your doctor along to see that
you are well taken care of and not allowed to expose yourself on deck
when you should be down in the saloon or lying in your berth."

"Yes," laughed Harold, "I shall do my best to keep my patient within
bounds and see that he does nothing to bring on a relapse and so do
discredit to my medical and surgical knowledge and skill."

"Which I should certainly be most sorry to do," smiled Dick. "If I do
not do credit to it all, it shall be no fault of mine. Never again,
cousin, can I for a moment forget that you stand at about the head of
your profession--or deserve to, certainly--as both physician and
surgeon. Captain, I accept your kind offer with most hearty thanks. I
feel already something like fifty per cent. better for the very
thought of the rest and pleasure of the voyage, the visit to my old
home and friends, and then a sojourn during the hot months in the
cooler regions of the North."

From that time his improvement was far more rapid than it had been,
and Maud was very happy over that and her preparations for the
contemplated trip, in which Grandma Elsie and Cousins Annis and Violet
gave her valuable assistance.

At length a letter was received telling that the newly-married pair
might be expected two days later. Chester brought the news to Viamede
shortly after breakfast and all heard it with pleasure, for they were
beginning to feel a strong drawing toward their northern homes.

"It is good news," said Grandma Elsie; "and now I want to carry out a
plan of which I have been thinking for some time."

"In regard to what?" asked her father.

"The reception to be given our bride and groom," she answered. "I want
it to be given here; all the connection now in these parts to be
invited, house and lawn to be decorated as they were for our large
party just after the wedding, and such a feast of fat things as we had
then to be provided."

"That is just like you, mother," said Captain Raymond; "always
thinking how to give pleasure and save trouble to other people."

"Ah, it seems to me that I am the one to do it in this instance," she
returned with a gratified smile, "having the most means, the most room
of any of the