exhausted spirits, and Arthur try and become a new man. Of course,
Laura would not forsake her mother?

Of course not. It was about Helen, and Helen only--that is, about
Arthur too for her sake, that Laura was anxious. She would go abroad or
anywhere with Helen.

And Helen having thought the matter over for an hour in her room, had by
that time grown to be as anxious for the tour as any schoolboy, who has
been reading a book of voyages, is eager to go to sea. Whither should
they go? the farther the better--to some place so remote that even
recollection could not follow them thither: so delightful that Pen
should never want to leave it--anywhere so that he could be happy. She
opened her desk with trembling fingers and took out her banker's book,
and counted up her little savings. If more was wanted, she had the
diamond cross. She would borrow from Laura again. "Let us go--let us
go," she thought; "directly he can bear the journey let us go away.
Come, kind Doctor Goodenough--come quick, and give us leave to quit
England."

The good Doctor drove over to dine with them that very day. "If you
agitate yourself so," he said to her, "and if your heart beats so,
and if you persist in being so anxious about a young gentleman who is
getting well as fast as he can, we shall have you laid up, and Miss
Laura to watch you; and then it will be her turn to be ill, and I should
like to know how the deuce a doctor is to live who is obliged to come
and attend you all for nothing? Mrs. Goodenough is already jealous
of you, and says, with perfect justice, that I fall in love with my
patients. And you must please to get out of the country as soon as ever
you can, that I may have a little peace in my family."

When the plan of going abroad was proposed, it was received by that
gentleman with the greatest alacrity and enthusiasm. He longed to be off
at once. He let his mustachios grow from that very moment, in order, I
suppose, that he might get his mouth into training for a perfect French
and German pronunciation; and he was seriously disquieted in his mind
because the mustachios, when they came, were of a decidedly red colour.
He had looked forward to an autumn at Fairoaks; and perhaps the idea of
passing two or three months there did not amuse the young man. "There
is not a soul to speak to in the place," he said to Warrington. "I can't
stand old Portman's sermons, and pompous after-dinner conversation. I
know all old Glanders's stories