In a vague way Erica had dreamed of China and the possibility of her one day actually going there, ever since she could remember. But from the moment of her receiving Sun Li’s silver-and-jade key, her dreaming took on more definite form. Perhaps one reason for this was the fact of Lister’s having actually met her Chinese godfather and seen his wonderful old palace. Lis had done all the things she, Erica, had longed to do. He could describe them, too, and make every last, smallest detail vivid—for Lis was an observant boy, not like helter-skelter Tommy who could have given her none of the descriptions she clamored for. Of course, for the first few days after they all returned to Nantucket, Erica did not have much time for planning for the future. It was enough just to have Lis back again, to hear him tell of his adventures by land and sea, and to realize that the past terrible weeks of suspense and fear were over forever. There was so much to tell of what had happened during the months he had been gone. First and foremost, of course, he must be introduced to his two new adopted sisters, Milly and little Barbee Thorne. It was no surprise to Erica that Lis should promptly lose his heart to Baby Barbee—everyone else in the family and the neighborhood had already done the same thing. But it did surprise, and perhaps—such being the way we erring humans seem to be inclined—disappoint her a little, too, when she found he did not share Tommy’s and her own dislike of the sullen-eyed, decidedly unfriendly Milly. Of course at the time Captain Bartlet had brought the dreadful news of Lis’s disappearance, Milly _had_ unexpectedly risen to new, sympathetic comprehension of other people’s sorrows and feelings. Both Tommy and Erica had experienced a sudden swift remorse for what they then began to regard as their unfair judgment of the girl. But the mood—since it seemed nothing more on Milly’s part—gradually wore away, and even in the few days that had elapsed before Erica and Aunt Callie had left for Boston to see Tommy off, Milly had slipped back into her usual black-browed, unsmiling aloofness whenever she was with her younger cousins. True, her new gentleness had persisted where Aunt Callie was concerned; but then, no one, not absolutely stony-hearted, could have seen delicate little Mrs. Folger in her repressed, uncomplaining agony over her missing son, and not at once have lost himself or herself in considering her. CHAPTER X “Look here, Rick, what’s all this nonsense between you and Milly?” Lis asked this direct question a trifle impatiently, about a week after his return to Nantucket. Up to then he had made no comments, sought for no information on a situation that unfortunately could not fail to be obvious to anyone thrown much with the two girls.