u approve of Mr. Kenby's plan. It does
seem the only thing to do. I can't trust myself alone with Rose, and Mr.
Kenby's intending to go to Schevleningen a few days later anyway. Though
it's too bad to let him give up the manoeuvres."

"I'm sure he won't mind that," Mrs. March's voice said mechanically,
while her thought was busy with the question whether this scandalous
duplicity was altogether Kenby's, and whether Mrs. Adding was as
guiltless of any share in it as she looked. She looked pitifully
distracted; she might not have understood his report; or Kenby might
really have mistaken Mrs. March's sympathy for favor.

"No, he only lives to do good," Mrs. Adding returned. "He's with Rose;
won't you come in and see them?"

Rose was lying back on the pillows of a sofa, from which they would not
let him get up. He was full of the trip to Holland, and had already
pushed Kenby, as Kenby owned, beyond the bounds of his very general
knowledge of the Dutch language, which Rose had plans for taking up after
they were settled in Schevleningen. The boy scoffed at the notion that he
was not perfectly well, and he wished to talk with March on the points
where he had found Kenby wanting.

"Kenby is an encyclopaedia compared with me, Rose," the editor protested,
and he amplified his ignorance for the boy's good to an extent which Rose
saw was a joke. He left Holland to talk about other things which his
mother thought quite as bad for him. He wished to know if March did not
think that the statue of the bishop with the sparrow on its finger was a
subject for a poem; and March said gayly that if Rose would write it he
would print it in 'Every Other Week'.

The boy flushed with pleasure at his banter. "No, I couldn't do it. But I
wish Mr. Burnamy had seen it. He could. Will you tell him about it?" He
wanted to know if March had heard from Burnamy lately, and in the midst
of his vivid interest he gave a weary sigh.

His mother said that now he had talked enough, and bade him say good-by
to the Marches, who were coming so soon to Holland, anyway. Mrs. March
put her arms round him to kiss him, and when she let him sink back her
eyes were dim.

"You see how frail he is?" said Mrs. Adding. "I shall not let him out of
my sight, after this, till he's well again."

She had a kind of authority in sending Kenby away with them which was not
lost upon the witnesses. He asked them to come into the reading-room a
moment with him, and Mrs. Marc