The evening was spent in chatting and visiting and looking over Emily's new clothes. Neither Emily nor Bessie--both overcome with excitement--slept much, however, that night, for they had a world to talk about as they lay in bed--but most of all the great and wonderful experiences Emily was to have.
Emily and her mother clung to each other, and Bessie to both of them, and cried and cried, when the time for parting came the following morning, until finally Douglas and Richard were compelled to draw Emily gently into the boat. Then motherly Mrs. Black, surreptitiously brushing tears from her own eyes, put her arm around Mrs. Gray and soothingly urged:
"Don't be cryin', Mary. Th' maid's goin' t' be all right, an' they's nothin' to cry for. 'Twon't be so long till you has she back."
Richard had the hull of the little schooner well under way when the mid-October cold forced him to abandon the work until the following summer, and he was preparing to set out upon his trail when Douglas appeared one evening, fresh from St. Johns, to report Emily comfortably settled in the home of a hospitable family near the school she was attending, and that she was immensely interested in her studies and fairly well contented, though a little lonesome at times for home.
Douglas evidently had something on his mind that troubled him. Once Mrs. Gray asked if he were ailing, but he denied anything but the best of health. Finally, however, as a disagreeable duty that he must perform, the kind-hearted old trapper said:
"I'm not knowin' just how t' tell you--'twill be a wonderful hard blow t' th' lad--th' bank where Bob were puttin' his money has broke, an' I'm fearin' th' money's all lost."
"Lost! Lost!" exclaimed Richard and Mrs. Gray together.
"Aye," said Douglas, "lost."
Then he explained fully the failure of the bank, in which he also had a small amount on deposit, and the improbability of any of the depositors recovering more than a nominal percentage of their deposits, and even that doubtful.
"Well," said Mrs. Gray, "'twill be wonderful hard on th' lad, an' he countin' so on th' tradin' business."