Fred Markham in Russia

Thank you, thank you; it will be very delightful, said Fred Markham. "It will be jolly, that it will!" exclaimed his younger brother Harry; and home they ran as fast as their legs could carry them to find their father and mother. "Oh, father, father!-mother, mother!-may we go? May we go?" they exclaimed in a breath together. "Cousin Giles has asked us, and he says that he will take very good care of us, and that he is not joking; that he is in real earnest, and that, if you will give us leave to go, he wishes to set off immediately." "But you have not told us where you wish to go to," said Captain Markham. "If it should chance to be to Timbuctoo, to the Sandwich Islands, or to the antipodes, I fear that I must refuse your request."