Of course it would have been necessary that the Babingtons should know all about it sooner or later, but John very much regretted that he had not delayed his letter till the day before his departure.
There is something jovial when you are young in preparing for a long voyage and for totally altered circumstances in life, especially when the surroundings are in themselves not melancholy.

A mother weeping over a banished child may be sad enough,--going as an exile when there is no hope of a return, But here among the Shands, with whom sons and daughters were plentiful, and with whom the feelings were of a useful kind, and likely to wear well, rather than of a romantic nature, the bustle, the purchasings, the arrangements, and the packings generally had in them a pleasantness of activity with no disagreeable accompaniments.
'I do hope you will wear them, Dick,' the mother said with something like a sob in her voice; but the tenderness came not from the approaching departure, but from her fear that the thick woollen drawers on which she was re-sewing all the buttons, should be neglected,--after Dick's usual fashion.

'Mr.Caldigate I hope you will see that he wears them.

He looks strong, but indeed he is not.' Our hero who had always regarded his friend as a bull for strength of constitution generally, promised that he would be attentive to Dick's drawers.
'You may be sure that I shall wear them,' said Dick; 'but the time will come when I shall probably wear nothing else, so you had better make the buttons firm.' Everything was to be done with strict economy, but yet there was plenty of money for purchases.

There always is at such occasions.