ings now. I know her name's
Victory, an' this un here in the book, her name's Mary."

"So it is," said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; "so it is. An'
the newspapers are not sayin' anything about any racks, thumb-screws,
or stake-burnin's,--but still it doesn't seem as if 't was safe for him
over there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don't keep the
Fourth o' July!"

He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until he
received Fauntleroy's letter and had read it several times, both to
himself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about the
same time, that he became composed again.

But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read and
re-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. And
they spent days over the answers they sent and read them over almost as
often as the letters they had received.

It was rather a labor for Dick to write his. All his knowledge of
reading and writing he had gained during a few months, when he had lived
with his elder brother, and had gone to a night-school; but, being a
sharp boy, he had made the most of that brief education, and had spelled
out things in newspapers since then, and practiced writing with bits of
chalk on pavements or walls or fences. He told Mr. Hobbs all about his
life and about his elder brother, who had been rather good to him after
their mother died, when Dick was quite a little fellow. Their father had
died some time before. The brother's name was Ben, and he had taken
care of Dick as well as he could, until the boy was old enough to sell
newspapers and run errands. They had lived together, and as he grew
older Ben had managed to get along until he had quite a decent place in
a store.

"And then," exclaimed Dick with disgust, "blest if he didn't go an'
marry a gal! Just went and got spoony an' hadn't any more sense left!
Married her, an' set up housekeepin' in two back rooms. An' a hefty un
she was,--a regular tiger-cat. She'd tear things to pieces when she got
mad,--and she was mad ALL the time. Had a baby just like her,--yell day
'n' night! An' if I didn't have to 'tend it! an' when it screamed, she'd
fire things at me. She fired a plate at me one day, an' hit the baby--
cut its chin. Doctor said he'd carry the mark till he died. A nice
mother she was! Crackey! but didn't we have a time--Ben 'n' mehself 'n'
the young un. She was mad at Ben because he didn't make money faster;
'n' at