in Nova Scotia, Eric would not have
hesitated a moment, but have jumped at the offer.

The old squire was very loath to part with his grandson, and it was
because he knew it would be so that the doctor had not positively asked
for Eric to be sent out, but had left the question to be decided by the
squire.

Perhaps Eric might have failed to carry his point but for the help
given him by Major Maunsell, a brother-officer of Doctor Copeland's,
who had been home on leave, and in whose charge Eric was to be placed
if it was decided to let him go.

The major had come to spend a day or two at Oakdene a little while
before taking his leave of England, and of course the question of
Eric's returning to Nova Scotia with him came up for discussion. Eric
pleaded his case very earnestly.

"Now please listen to me a moment," said he, taking advantage of a
pause in the conversation. "I love you, grandpa and grandma, very
dearly, and am very happy with you here; but I love my father too, and
I never see him, except just for a little while, when he comes home on
leave, and it would be lovely to be with him all the time for three
whole years. Besides that, I do want to see America, and this is such
a good chance. I am nearly sixteen now, and by the time father gets
back I'll have to be going to college, and then, you know, he says he's
going to leave the army and settle down here, so that dear knows when I
can ever get the chance to go again. Oh! please let me go, grandpa,
won't you?"

Major Maunsell's eyes glistened as he looked at Eric and listened to
him. He was an old bachelor himself, and he could not help envying
Doctor Copeland for his handsome, manly son. At once he entered into
full sympathy with him in his great desire, and determined to use all
his influence in supporting him.

"There's a great deal of sense in what the boy says," he remarked. "It
is such a chance as he may not get again in a hurry. There's nothing
to harm him out in Halifax; and his father is longing to have him, for
he's always talking to me about him, and reading me bits out of his
letters."

So the end of it was that the major and Eric between them won the day,
and after taking the night to think over it, the good old squire
announced the next morning at breakfast that he would make no further
objections, and that Eric might go.

The troop-ship in which Major Maunsell was going would sail in a week,
so there was no time to be lost in get