She did not know this bold sailor as well as she loved him, and she was not at all sure that the plans he might make for her during his absence would suit her disposition or her purposes.  Consequently, she resolved to submit her plans to him before he should write again.  Above everything else, she wished to be in that part of the world at which Captain Horn might be expected to arrive when his present adventure should be accomplished.  She did not wish to be sent for to go to France.  She did not wish to be told that he was coming to America.  Wherever he might land, there she would be.

The point that he might be unsuccessful, and might never leave South America, did not enter into her consideration.  She was acting on the basis that he was a man who was likely to succeed in his endeavors.  If she should come to know that he had not succeeded, then her actions would be based upon the new circumstances.

Furthermore, she had now begun to make plans for her future life.  She had been waiting for Captain Horn to come to her, and to find out what he intended to do.  Now she knew he was not coming to her for a long time, and was aware of what he intended to do, and she made her own plans.  Of course, she dealt only with the near future.  All beyond that was vague, and she could not touch it even with her thoughts.  When sending his remittances, the captain had written that she and Mrs. Cliff must consider the money he sent her as income to be expended, not as principal to be put away or invested.  He had made provisions for the future of all of them, in case he should not succeed in his present project, and what he had not set aside with that view he had devoted to his own operations, and to the maintenance, for a year, of Edna, Ralph, and Mrs. Cliff, in such liberal and generous fashion as might please them, and he had apportioned the remittances in a way which he deemed suitable.  As Edna disbursed the funds, she knew that this proportion was three quarters for herself and Ralph, and one quarter for Mrs. Cliff.

“He divides everything into four parts,” she thought, “and gives me his share.”

Acting on her principle of getting every good thing out of life that life could give her, and getting it while life was able to give it to her, there was no doubt in regard to her desires.  Apart from her wish to go where the captain expected to go, she considered that every day now spent in America was a day lost.  If her further good fortune should never arrive, and the money in hand should be gone, she wished, before that time came, to engraft upon her existence a period of life in Europe—­life of such freedom and opportunity as never before she had had a right to dream of.