I selected and
folded the clothes I wished to take. As I examined my socks for signs
of wear and tear, and then folded them by the ingenious process of
grasping the heels and turning them inside out, in imitation of Nurse
Bundle, an idea struck me, based upon my late reading and approaching
prospects of travel.

"Nurse," said I, "I think I should like to learn to darn socks,
because, you know, I might want to know how, if I was cast away on a
desert island."

"If ever you find yourself on a desolate island, Master Reginald,"
said Nurse Bundle, "just you write straight off to me, and I'll come
and do them kind of things for you."

"Well," said I, "only mind you bring Rubens, if I haven't got him."

For I had dim ideas that some Robinson Crusoe adventures might befall
me before I returned home from this present expedition.

My father's place was about sixty miles from London. Mr. and Mrs.
Ascott had come down in their own carriage, and were to return the
same way.

I was to go with them, and Nurse Bundle also. She was to sit in the
rumble of the carriage behind. Every particular of each new
arrangement afforded me great amusement; and I could hardly control my
impatience for the eventful day to arrive.

It came at last. There was very early breakfast for us all in the
dining-room. No appetite, however, had I; and very cruel I thought
Aunt Maria for insisting that I should swallow a certain amount of
food, as a condition of being allowed to go at all. My enforced
breakfast over, I went to look for Rubens. Ever since the day when it
was first settled that I should go, the dear dog had kept close, very
close at my heels. That depressed and aimless wandering about which
always afflicts the dogs of the household when any of the family are
going away from home was strong upon him. After the new trunk came
into my room, Rubens took into his head a fancy for lying upon it; and
though the brass nails must have been very uncomfortable, and though
my bed was always free to him, on the box he was determined to be, and
on the box he lay for hours together.

It was on the box that I found him, in the portico, despite the cords
which now added a fresh discomfort to his self-chosen resting-place. I
called to him, but though he wagged his tail he seemed disinclined to
move, and lay curled up with one eye shut and one fixed on the
carriage at the door.

"He's been trying to get into the carriage, sir," said the butler.

"You