with me. You will wonder how we get
books, but we had a few with us when we were marooned, and since that my
father has always asked for books when he has an opportunity of trading
off his hides. But I have read them all over and over again, and if it
were not for the ships which I expect to come here and anchor, I am
afraid I should grow melancholy."

"What sort of ships do you look for?" asked Dickory, who was gazing
upward with so much interest that he felt a little pain in the back of
his neck, and who could not help thinking of a framed engraving which
hung in his mother's little parlour, and which represented some angels
composed of nothing but heads and wings. He saw no wings under the head
of the charming young creature in the tree, but there was no reason
which he could perceive why she should not be an angel marooned upon a
West Indian island.

"There are a great many of them," said she, "and they're all alike in
one way--they never come. But there's one of them in particular which I
look for and look for and look for, and which I believe that some day I
shall really see. I have thought about that ship so often and I have
dreamed about it so often that I almost know it must come."

"Is it an English ship?" asked Dickory, speaking with some effort, for
he found that the girl's voice came down much more readily than his
went up.

"I don't know," said she, "but I suppose it must be, for otherwise I
should not understand what the people on board should say to me. It is a
large ship, strong and able to defend itself against any pirates. It is
laden with all sorts of useful and valuable things, and among these are
a great many trunks and boxes filled with different kinds of clothes.
Also, there's a great deal of money kept in a box by itself, and is in
charge of an agent who is bringing it out to my father, supposing him to
be now settled in Barbadoes. This money is generally a legacy for my
father from a distant relative who has recently died. On this ship there
are so many delightful things that I cannot even begin to mention them."

"And where is it going to?" asked Dickory.

"That I don't know exactly. Sometimes I think that it is going to the
island of Barbadoes, where we originally intended to settle; but then I
imagine that there is some pleasanter place than Barbadoes, and if
that's the case the ship is going there."

"There can be no pleasanter place than Barbadoes," cried Dickory. "I
come from that