“I don’t say it has, child; I don’t say it has.  But it may have come to the northward of Cape Horn, and that will be a great matter; for all the ice that is drifting about there comes from the polar seas, and is so much taken out of Gardner’s track.”

“Still he must come through it to get home,” returned Mary, in her sweet, melancholy tones.  “Ah! why cannot men be content with the blessings that Providence places within our immediate reach, that they must make distant voyages to accumulate others!”

“You like your tea, I fancy, Mary Pratt—­and the sugar in it, and your silks and ribbons that I’ve seen you wear; how are you to get such matters if there’s to be no going on v’y’ges?  Tea and sugar, and silks and satins don’t grow along with the clams on ‘Yster Pond’”—­for so the deacon uniformly pronounced the word ‘oyster.’

Mary acknowledged the truth of what was said, but changed the subject.  The journal contained no more that related to sealing or sealers, and it was soon laid aside.

“It may be that Gar’ner is digging for the buried treasure all this time,” the deacon at length resumed.  “That may be the reason he is so late.  If so, he has nothing to dread from ice.”

“I understand you, sir, that this money is supposed to be buried on a key—­in the West Indies, of course.”

“Don’t speak so loud, Mary—­there’s no need of letting all ’Yster Pond know where the treasure is.  It may be in the West Ingees, or it may not; there’s keys all over the ’arth, I take it.”

“Do you not think, uncle, that Roswell would write, if detained long among those keys?”

“You wouldn’t hear to post-offices in the antarctic ocean, and now you want to put them on the sand-keys of the West Ingees!  Woman’s always a sailin’ ag’in wind and tide.”

“I do not think so, sir, in this case, at least.  There must be many vessels passing among the keys of the West Indies, and nothing seems to me to be easier than to send letters by them.  I am quite sure Roswell would write, if in a part of the world where he thought what he wrote would reach us.”

“Not he—­not he—­Gar’ner’s not the man I take him for, if he let any one know what he is about in them keys, until he had done up all his business there.  No, no, Mary.  We shall never hear from him in that quarter of the world.  It may be that Gar’ner is a digging about, and has difficulty in finding the place; for Daggett’s account had some weak spots in it.”

Mary made no reply, though she thought it very little likely that Roswell would pass months in the West Indies employed in such a pursuit, without finding the means of letting her know where he was, and what he was about.  The intercourse between these young people was somewhat peculiar, and ever had been.  In listening to the suit of Roswell, Mary had yielded to her heart; in hesitating about accepting him, she deferred to her principles.  Usually, a mother—­not