“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, no matter what his letter told; but to be utterly dropped, that I cannot bear.”

“You have not been dropped,” he exclaimed, “and you shall know it.  Kate, I am going—­”

“Nay, nay,” she exclaimed, “you must not call me that!”

“But you call me Dickory,” he said.

“True, but you are so much younger.”

“Younger!” he exclaimed in a tone of contempt, not for the speaker but for the word she had spoken.  “Eleven months!”

She laughed a little laugh; her nature was so full of it that even now she could not keep it back.

“You must have been making careful computation,” she said, “but it does not matter; you must not call me Kate, and I shall keep on calling you Dickory; I could not help it.  Now, where is it you were about to say you were going?”

“If you think me old enough,” said he, “I am going to Barbadoes in the King and Queen.  She sails to-morrow.  I shall find out about everything, and I shall get your letter, then I shall come back and bring it to you.”

“Dickory!” she exclaimed, and her eyes glowed.

There was silence for some moments, and then he spoke, for it was necessary for him to say something, although he would have been perfectly content to stand there speechless, so long as her eyes still glowed.

“If I don’t go,” said he, “it may be long before you hear from him; having written, he will wait for an answer.”

She thought of no difficulties, no delays, no dangers.  “How happy you have made me, Dickory!” she said.  “It is this dreadful ignorance, these fearful doubts of which I ought to be ashamed.  But if I get his letter, if I know he has not deserted me!”

“You shall get it,” he cried, “and you shall know.”

“Dickory,” said she, “you said that exactly as you spoke when you told me that if I let myself drop into the darkness, you would be there.”

“And you shall find me there now,” said he; “always, if you need me, you shall find me there!”

Dame Charter had been standing and watching this interview, her foolish motherly heart filled with the brightest, most unreasonable dreams.  And why should she not dream, even if she knew her dreams would never come true?  In a few short weeks that Dickory boy had grown to be a man, and what should not be dreamed about a man!

As Kate ran by the open door towards her uncle’s apartments, Dame Charter rose up, surprised.

“What have you been saying to her, Dickory?” she exclaimed.  “Do you know something we have not heard?  Have you been giving her news of her father?”