th horrible doubts. I
have heard of the talk in Bridgetown before we left, and now here is
this letter from Mr. Newcombe from which I cannot fail to see that there
must have been other talk that he considerately refrains from telling
me."

"He should not have written such a letter," exclaimed Dickory hotly; "he
might have known it would have set you to suspecting things."

"You don't know what you are talking about, you foolish boy," said she;
"it is a very proper letter about things you don't understand."

She stepped a little closer to him as if she feared some one might hear
her. "Dickory," said she, "he did not put that thing into my mind; it
was there already. That was a dreadful ship, Dickory, and it was filled
with dreadful men. If he had not intended to go with them he would not
have put himself into their power, and if he had not intended to be long
away he would not have planned to leave me here with my uncle."

"You ought not to think such a thing as that for one minute," cried
Dickory. "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. I believe that he has written there."

"Why do you believe that?" she asked eagerly, with one hand on his arm.

"I think it," said Dickory, his cheeks a little ruddier in their
brownness, "because there is more known there than Master Newcombe chose
to put into his letter. If he has not written, how should they know
more?"

She now looked straight into his eyes, and as he returned the gaze he
could see in her pupils his head and his straw hat, with the clear sky
beyond.

"Dickory," she said, "if he wrote to anybody he also wrote to me, and
that letter is still there."

"That is what I believe," said he, "and I have been believing it."

"Then why didn't you say so to me, you wretched boy?" cried Kate. "You
ought to have known how that would have comforted me. If I could only
think he has surely written, my heart would bound,