"I tell you, I don't know; and if I did know, I couldn't tell. Listen,
Alice, I will tell you as much as I am permitted to let out."

The boy became extremely solemn at this point, took the little girl's
hand, and gazed into her face as he spoke.

"You must know," he began, "that Henry and his mother and I go away
to-night--"

"To-night?" cried Alice, quickly.

"To-night," repeated the boy. "Bumpus and Jakolu go with us. I have
said that I don't know where we are going to, but I am pretty safe in
assuring you that we are going somewhere. Why we are going, I am
forbidden to tell--divulge, I think Henry called it, but what that means
I don't know. I can only guess it's another word for tell, and yet it
can't be that either, for you can speak of _telling_ lies, but you can't
speak of _divulging_ them. However, that don't matter. But I'm not
forbidden to tell you why _I_ am going away. In the first place, then,
I'm going to seek my fortune! Where I'm to find it remains to be seen.
The only thing I know is, that I mean to find it somewhere or other, and
then," (here Corrie became very impressive,) "come back and live beside
you and your father, not to speak of Poopy and Toozle."

Alice smiled sadly at this. Corrie looked graver than ever, and went
on--

"Meanwhile, during my absence, I will write letters to you, and you'll
write ditto to me. I am going away because I ought to go and be doing
something for myself. You know quite well that I would rather stop
beside you than go anywhere in this wide world, Alice; but that would be
stupid. I'm getting to be a man now, and mustn't go on shewin' the
weaknesses of a boy. In the second, or third, place--I forget which,
but no matter--I am going with Henry because I could not go with a
better man; and in the fourth--if it's not the fifth--place, I'm going
because Uncle Ole Thorwald has long wished me to go to sea, and, to tell
you the truth, I would have gone long ago had it not been for you,
Alice. There's only one thing that bothers me." Here Corrie looked at
his fair companion with a perplexed air.

"What is that?" asked Alice, sympathetically.

"It is that I must go without saying good-bye to Uncle Ole. I'm _very_
sorry about it. It will look so ungrateful to him; but it _can't_ be
helped."

"Why not?" inquired Alice. "If he has often said he wished you to go to
sea, would he not be delighted to hear that you are going?"

"Yes; but he must not