it I have been
thinking more than ever of dear Jack. You know that he went away in a
ship to the Pacific Ocean, and the ship was wrecked, just as Robinson
Crusoe's was, and though he was not a supercargo, he was a midshipman,
and I don't suppose there is much difference; and at all events, if
Robinson Crusoe was saved, and lived on a desert island for many years,
though everybody else in the ship was lost, why should not dear Jack
have been cast on some island, and be still alive, though not able to
get away, or I am sure that he would, and would come home and tell us
all about it; for he knows how we all love him and think about him every
day."

"What a strange idea!" said Stephen, somewhat coldly. "I thought that
it was settled that Jack was dead long ago. Do you really believe that
he is alive?"

"Of course I do," answered Margery, with some little impatience in her
tone; "it was only those who don't care about him settled that he was
dead. I have always, always, been sure that he is alive, over the sea
there, a long, long way off; but he will come back when we can send for
him."

"Very strange!" muttered Stephen. "But what, Mrs Margery, would you
have me do?"

"Stephen, you knew dear Jack well," she answered, fixing her large blue
eyes on him; "you used to call him your friend, and friends ought to
help each other. If I was a boy, whether or not I was Jack's brother--
if I was his friend,--I know what I would do: I would go out and look
for him."

"But where would you look?" asked Stephen. "The Pacific is a very wide
place, even on the map; and I have a fancy that in reality it is wider
still. There are many, many islands no one knows anything of."

"Ah! that is the very thing I have been thinking of," exclaimed Margery.
"I am certain that Jack is living on one of those very islands."

"How can you, Margery, be certain of any such thing?" said Stephen, in
his usual cold tone, which contrasted curiously with the enthusiastic
manner of little Margery.

"How can you ask that question, Stephen?" she exclaimed, half angry that
he should venture to doubt the correctness of her most cherished belief.
"Robinson Crusoe was wrecked on a desert island and so Jack may be, and
I want you to go and look for him, and bring him home! There! I will
not be refused! You are old enough and big enough to go,--bigger than
Jack was--and you have plenty of money; and your papa always lets you do
just what you like, so