After consulting with my
guardian, I accepted that to France, which not only paid the best, but
I was desirous of seeing more of the world than had yet fallen to my
share. I could make a voyage to Bordeaux and back in five months, and
by the end of that time I should be of age, and consequently my own
master. As I intended to have great doings at Clawbonny on that
occasion, I thought it might be well not to go too far from
home. Accordingly, after shipping Talcott and the Philadelphian, whose
name was Walton, for my mates, we began to take in cargo, as soon as
possible.
In the meantime, I bethought me of a visit to the paternal home. It
was a season of the year, when most people, who were anybodies, left
town, and the villas along the shores of the Hudson had long been
occupied. Mr. Hardinge, too, pined for the country and his flock. The
girls had had enough of town, which was getting to be very dull, and
everybody, Rupert excepted, seemed anxious to go up the river. I had
invited the Mertons to pass part of the summer at the farm, moreover,
and it was time the invitation should be renewed, for the Major's
physicians had advised him to choose some cooler residence than the
streets of a hot close town could furnish, during the summer
months. Emily had been so much engrossed with the set into which she
had fallen, since her landing, and which it was easy for me to see was
altogether superior to that in which she had lived at home, that I was
surprised at the readiness with which she urged her father to redeem
his promise.
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