Erica, with a big lump in her throat, glanced quickly and remorsefully at Tommy. Had they really been unkind all this past winter when they thought they were merely paying a spoiled and ungrateful girl back in her own coin? It was not a pleasant thought, particularly at a moment like this. Erica was inclined to resent the realization unreasonably. They had enough to bear with all this dreadful news about Lis, without having their feelings further harrowed up with remorse for past treatment of Milly. Why couldn’t Milly have been normal, and cried and showed her grief so ordinary folks could understand? She’d certainly acted, most of the time, as if she hated them all and was in Nantucket under compulsion only. “When do you sail again for Canton, Captain?” Aunt Callie was asking, steadily, when Erica pulled herself out of the rather morbid reflections she was so unwontedly entertaining. “In another week, ma’am,” he said. “Just time to unload cargo and take on another we’ve got, consigned to Hong Kong. We sail to Hong Kong first, and then to Canton, this trip. There’ll surely be good news waiting when we reach there. Thee must keep up a good heart, Mrs. Folger. Thy boy will come sailing back to thee yet, strong and hale, or my name’s not Judson Bartlet. Thee must hope and pray, and have faith in the Lord’s goodness.” He spoke quite simply, and with such evident conviction that Mrs. Folger stretched out her hand to him in swift and wordless gratitude, faintly touched with a new hope. “And perhaps Erica’s father will bring good news, even before Captain Bartlet’s ship has time to go and return,” Milly Thorne reminded them, her cheek still against Mrs. Folger’s knee like a snuggling kitten. “The governor is a friend of his and will surely have done his utmost to get word to him, if there were news before the _Sea Gull_ sailed. And——” she hesitated, and looked from Mrs. Folger up to Tommy, standing white-faced and tense behind her chair—”why shouldn’t Tommy go back with Captain Bartlet on this next trip?” she asked, unexpectedly. “He still needs a cabin boy, now that Lister——” She stopped and smiled a little, obviously pleased at the glow of eagerness that flashed across Tommy’s face like a crimson flame. “Then he would be on the spot if there is any news waiting when the ship arrives. He wanted very much to go in the first place, I know, and perhaps he can talk to this Sun Li more—more personally, as Lister’s brother and Captain Folger’s nephew. And Barbee and I will be here to look after you,” she wound up, touching the hand that still rested affectionately on her head. “Oh, _mother_!” Tommy burst out in a voice of such desperate pleading as needed no other explanations of how he felt in the matter. “Milly, you—you’re——” He choked audibly and turned very red at such a frank betrayal of sentiment. “Mother, I’ve just _got_ to go,” he finished.