The time fixed for the sailing of the steamer was on Tuesday morning; and Mr. George, in order to have time to communicate with some of the gentlemen to whose care he intended to intrust the two children, planned his journey to New York so as to arrive there in good season on Monday. He supposed that he should be able, without any difficulty, to find one or the other of them in the afternoon or evening of that day.

"And if worst comes to the worst," added he to himself, in his reflections on the subject, "I can certainly find them at the ship, by going on board an hour or two before she sails, and watching the plank as the passengers come up from the pier."

Worst did come to the worst, it seems; for when Mr. George came home at nine o'clock in the evening, on Monday, and Rollo came up to him very eagerly in the parlor of the boarding house, to ask him whom he had found to take charge of them, he was forced to confess that he had not found any one.

"I am glad of it!" exclaimed Rollo, joyfully. "I am glad of it! I like it a great deal better to take care of ourselves."

He then began dancing about the room, and finally ran off in great glee, to inform Jane of the prospect before them. Rollo was very ambitious of being considered a man.

He found Jane sitting on the stairs with another child of her own age, that she had become acquainted with at the boarding house; for it was at a boarding house, and not at a hotel, that Mr. George had taken lodgings for his party. This child's name was Lottie; that is, she was commonly called Lottie, though her real name was Charlotte. She was a beautiful child, with beaming black eyes, a radiant face, and dark glossy curls of hair hanging down upon her neck. Jane and Lottie were playing together in a sort of recess at a landing of the stairs, where there was a sofa and a window. They had tiger and the cage with them. The door was open and tiger was playing about the cage, going in and out at her pleasure.

"Jane," said Rollo, "uncle George cannot find any body to take care of you, and so I am going to take care of you."

Jane did not answer.

"Are you going to England?" asked Lottie.

"Yes," replied Jane, mournfully; "and there is nobody to go with us, to take care of us."

"I went to England once," said Lottie.

"Did you?" asked Jane; "and did you go across the Atlantic Ocean?"

"Yes," said Lottie.

"Of course she did," said Rollo; "there is no other way."

"And how did you get along?" said Jane.

"O, very well," said Lottie; "we had a very good time playing about the decks and cabins."

Jane felt somewhat reassured by these declarations of Lottie, and she even began to think that if there was nothing to be done in crossing the Atlantic but to play about the decks and cabins all the way, there was a possibility that Rollo might be able to take care of her.

"My uncle is going on a voyage, too, to-morrow," added Lottie.

"What uncle?" asked Jane.

"My uncle Thomas," said Lottie. "He lives in this house. He is packing up his trunk now. He is going to Charleston. I wish I were going with him."

"Do you like to go to sea?" asked Jane.

"Yes," said Lottie, "pretty well. I like to see the sailors climb up the masts and rigging; and I like the cabins, because there are so many sofas in them, and so many places to hide."

Little Jane felt much less uneasiness at the idea of going to sea after hearing Lottie give such favorable accounts of her own experience. Still she was not entirely satisfied. As for Rollo, his eagerness to go independent of all supervision did not arise wholly from vanity and presumption. He was now twelve years of age, and that is an age which fairly qualifies a boy to bear some considerable burdens of responsibility and duty. At any rate, it is an age at which it ought to be expected that the powers and characteristics of manhood should, at least, begin to be developed. It is right, therefore, that a boy at that age should begin to feel something like a man, and to desire that opportunities should arise for exercising the powers which he finds thus developing themselves and growing stronger every day within him.

The fact that Lottie's uncle Thomas was going to embark for Charleston on the same day that had been fixed for Rollo's embarkation for Europe might seem at first view a very unimportant circumstance. It happened, however, that it led, in fact, to very serious consequences. The case was this. It is necessary, however, first to explain, for the benefit of those readers of this book who may never have had opportunities to become acquainted with the usages of great cities, that there are two separate systems in use in such cities for the transportation respectively of baggage, and of persons, from place to place. For baggage and parcels, there are what are called expresses. The owners of these expresses have offices in various parts of the city, where books are kept, in which a person may go and have an entry made of any trunk, or bag, or other package which he may wish to have conveyed to any place. He enters in the book what the parcel is, where it is, and where he wishes to have it taken. The express man then, who has a great number of wagons employed for this purpose, sends for the parcel by the first wagon that comes in.

For persons who wish to be conveyed from place to place, there are carriages all the time standing at certain points by the sides of the streets, ready for any one who calls them, and there are also stables where carriages are always in readiness. Now, it so happened that Lottie's uncle Thomas had concluded to have his trunk taken down to the Charleston ship by the express, intending to walk to the pier himself from his office, which was in the lower part of the city not far from the pier where his ship was lying. So he went to an express office, and there, at his dictation, the clerk made the following entry in his book:—

Trunk at 780 Broadway, to steamer Carolina, Pier No. 4 North River. To-morrow, at half past nine o'clock.

On the other hand, Mr. George, as he required a carriage to take the children down, did not go to the express office at all. He intended to take their trunk on the carriage. So he went to the stable, and there, at his dictation, the clerk made on the book there the following entry:—

Carriage at 780 Broadway. To-morrow, at half past nine o'clock.

In accordance with this arrangement, therefore, a little after nine o'clock both the trunks were got ready at the boarding house, each in its own room. The chambermaid in Rollo's room, when she saw that the trunk was ready, offered to carry it down, which, as she was a good strong Irish girl, she could very easily do. She accordingly took it up in her arms and carried it down stairs to the front entry, and put it down near the door. One of the waiters of the house was standing by when she did this.

"What is that, Mary?" said he.

"It is a trunk to go to the steamer," said Mary. "There is a man coming for it pretty soon."

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