"I would not think so about my mother, no matter what happened!" She smiled slightly as she answered.

"I would my father were a mother, and then I need not think such things.

But, Dickory, if he had but written to me! And in all this time he might have written, knowing how I must feel." Dickory stood silent, his bosom heaving.

Suddenly he turned sharply towards her.

"Of course he has written," said he, "but how could his letter come to you?
We know not where he has sailed, and besides, who could have told him you had already gone to your uncle?
But the people at Bridgetown must know things.