be
back aboard ship."

"We'll miss you dreadfully, Frederick," his sister remarked.

"But remember I'll be putting in at various ports off and on," returned
the captain, "and be mailing you letters, postals and trinkets of one
sort and another. Moreover, you're all going to write to me, I
hope--even Martin. For if there's any one thing a sailor man looks
forward to it's the mail that awaits him in a foreign port. I must own
that with all the virtues the sea possesses the landlubber has the best
of us on mail service. Rural free delivery is one blessing we can't
boast. No blue-coated postmen come sauntering down our watery streets
to drop letters and papers into our boxes. We have to call for these
ourselves same as you might have to go to a post-office here ashore if
the government wasn't as thoughtful and generous as it is. Our
post-offices are sometimes pretty far apart, too, and I'm driven to
confess we don't always get our mail as often as we'd like. That's one
of the outs of seafaring. So when we do touch shore and go looking for
letters it is disappointing not to find any. Don't forget that. After
I'm gone you will get busy with your school, and your sewing, and your
fun, and you will not think so often about Uncle Frederick." He put up
a warning hand to stay the protest of his listeners. "You won't mean
to," continued he kindly, "but you'll do it all the same. It's human
nature."

This sinister prediction, however, did not prove true.

For days after Captain Dillingham said good-by to Baileyville, Mulberry
Court, the Harlings and the McGregors were inconsolable.

"The house isn't the same with Uncle Frederick gone, is it, Mother?"
commented Mary.

"No, it isn't. We miss him very much."

"I should say we did! Such a lot of things happen all the time that I
want to tell him," Carl broke in. "Why, only this morning the teacher
gave me a book to look up something and the first page I opened to had
a lot about foreign trade. A month ago I wouldn't have cast my eye over
it a second time but now, because of Uncle Frederick, that sort of
thing interests me. So I read along down the left-hand column and what
should it be about but the first spinning mills! I wished Uncle
Frederick could have read it."

"You must write him about it," flashed Mary. "What did it say, Carl?"

"Oh, I don't know," her brother answered awkwardly. "I'm not sure that
I can remember exactly. I wasn't learning it to recite."

"But you