silence was most unaccountable and painful. We
could not believe that he was lost to us for ever, nor could we suppose
for a moment that he whose memory was so fondly cherished, and who had
loved us all so much, had so completely changed as not to think it worth
while even to communicate with us, and to let us know that he was alive.

"Oh no, no! that is impossible," exclaimed our mother, with tears in her
eyes, when one day our father remarked that lads scarcely were aware how
quickly time flew by, and that they often put off writing home from day
to day till they forgot all about the matter. "I am sure our dear
Alfred would have written if he could. Perhaps he has written, and his
letters have been lost. This is by far the most likely thing to have
occurred. So affectionate, kind, and dutiful as he always was, he
certainly has not forgotten us."

Mary, and Charlotte, and Herbert, all thought the same. So did I. I
felt sure that he had not forgotten us, and that, had he possessed the
means of writing and of sending us a letter, that he would have done so;
but I could not help fancying that he must have been made prisoner by
some savages, or carried into slavery by some Malays or Malagash or
other eastern people, or perhaps that he had been wrecked on some
desolate island from which he had no means of escaping. I reasoned
thus: Fond as he was of the sea, after he had left his ship and
virtually quitted the navy, he was not at all likely to live a shore
life. It was much more probable that he would engage in some trading
voyage or other, and the more romance and adventure it might appear to
offer, the more likely he was to select it; and thus he would have gone
away to the South Seas or to the East Indian Islands, where all the
contingencies I have just spoken of were very likely to occur. It at
last became a fixed idea in my mind that poor Alfred was groaning
somewhere or other in slavery, but the where was the question to solve.
I told my sister Mary my idea, but she entreated me on no account to
mention it to our mother, or to anybody else, as she was certain that it
would make them still more unhappy about him than they were already.

At length a strong desire grew up in my bosom to set out and try to
discover Alfred. I had heard my father quote a Portuguese proverb, "He
who does not want sends, he who wants goes." Now, I certainly wanted
very much indeed to find out where poor Alfred was, and I was rea