“Miss Miranda only meant to help us remember the Barbary pirates,” David was saying, “but she told us more than that. I begin to see how it is their blood, hers and her father’s, to dream of progress and new things. That new engine that Mr. Reynolds is trying to develop may turn out as great a thing as the clipper ship, and may bring as many changes. And she is doing as much for it as her father, managing that he is never disturbed or troubled or discouraged. Even if he should want to give it up, I think she wouldn’t let him.” “She is more like Jonathan Adams than like Humphrey Reynolds,” rejoined Elizabeth, “though they were both her great-grandfathers. Jonathan’s daughter married Humphrey’s son and they inherited the shipyard, so she told me yesterday, and built clipper ships after him. Some of them really did sail to Europe in nine days, just as Jonathan had hoped. They made a great fortune during that time when American ships were trading with the whole world.” “And it was that fortune that built this house,” David took up the thread of speculation, “and gave Mr. Reynolds his scientific education and sent him to all sorts of places abroad to study. But where is it?” “Wherever it has gone,” Betsey said, “it may come back again some day. I will always like to think of how Jonathan and Humphrey succeeded in the face of everything. I think Mr. Reynolds will succeed in the same way.” “Miss Miranda will never lose courage,” David observed reflectively, “but her father is—a little different. He is old and tired and he is trying to do the work of a young man, of a person with strength and confidence in himself. Without Miss Miranda he might have lost spirit long ago, but she will help him to the very end. She is anxious and lonely, she wants her brother, and she wants her house. But more than anything she wants her father’s success.” “They must have been very happy when they lived here,” Betsey went on, “with Mr. Reynolds busy at his work, with Ted coming home for vacations—he was only just out of college, Michael says, when the war began—with that Cousin Donald gone into business and doing well. Mr. Reynolds must have given him the money for a start and I think they must all have felt more comfortable when he was gone. And then the house burned and the war came, and everything was changed so that nobody was happy any more.” “Mr. Reynolds is happy,” David insisted; “whatever is wrong is being kept from him. To work at something you love that is coming nearer and nearer to success, that is one of the best things there is. But Miss Miranda isn’t happy! And she is growing more unhappy every day. It’s time something was done.” “If her brother could only come home,” Betsey suggested. “He might come home to-morrow, he might be kept a year,” replied David. “No, we can’t wait for him. We will have to do something ourselves.” “But what can we do?” questioned Betsey blankly.