ant to start for
Boston?"

"To-morrow."

"But how am I going to get ready your shirts and socks so soon?"

"I shall not take any of them."

"Robert Coverdale, you must be crazy. You can't wear one shirt for two
months if you're going so long."

"I don't expect to, aunt," said the boy, smiling. "I am going to buy a
whole outfit of new things when I get to Boston. The hermit wants me
to."

"He must be awful rich!" said the good woman, whose ideas on the subject
of wealth were limited.

"All the better for us, Aunt Jane, as he is willing to spend some of his
money for us."

Mrs. Trafton was considerably excited by the prospect of Robert's
journey, and, notwithstanding what he had said, occupied herself in
washing his clothes and making a small bundle for him to carry, but
Robert declined taking them, with a smile.

"You see, aunt, my clothes wouldn't be good enough to wear in Boston,"
he said. "Just keep them till I get back. Perhaps I may need them
then."

"I'll lay 'em away carefully, Robert. When you get a little larger I
guess you'll be able to wear some of your uncle's clothes. His best suit
might be made over for you. He hadn't had it but six years, and there's
a good deal of wear in it yet. I might cut it over myself when you're
gone."

"Better wait till I come back, aunt," said Robert hastily.

He knew the suit very well. It was snuff-colored and by no means a good
fit, even for his uncle, while under his aunt's unpracticed hands it
would probably look considerably worse when made over for him.

It must be confessed that Robert's ideas were expanding and he was
rapidly growing more fastidious. He instinctively felt that he was about
to turn a new leaf in his book of life and to enter on new scenes, in
which he was to play a less obscure part than had been his hitherto in
the little village of Cook's Harbor.

But no such change had come to his aunt. She still regarded Robert as
the same boy that he always had been--born to the humble career of a
fisherman--and she examined her husband's best suit with much
complacency, mentally resolving that, in spite of Robert's objection,
she would devote her leisure time to making it over for him.

"He can wear it for best for a year or two," she thought, "and then put
it on every day. I am sure it will look well on him."

In the evening Robert went to the cave to have a farewell interview with
the hermit--or Gilbert Huet, to give him the name which was pro