“No,” Dicky answered. He threw himself down among them; handed the post card to Rosie who had leaped from the hammock. It passed from hand to hand. Harold, the last to receive it, read it aloud. “Love to everybody and how I wish I could see you all!” was with the date, all it said.
“Nothing about coming home,” exclaimed Rosie, “Oh dear, how disappointed I am.”
“Where’s it from?” Arthur asked, as though suddenly remembering something. “The last post card was from Paris.”
“London,” Dicky answered.
“London,” Arthur echoed, “she told me that when she came home, she’d sail from England.”
“Did she?” Rosie asked listlessly. “She never told me that, but you see, she says nothing of sailing. She’s probably going to spend the summer there. I remember that she told me of a beautiful place they lived in one summer in England. She said that there was a forest not far from the house where Robin Hood and his men used to meet. Probably she will go there.” Rosie stopped for a minute and then the listlessness in her voice changed to a kind of despair. “I don’t believe she’ll ever come back.”
“I know she will,” Dicky announced with decision. “The last thing Maida said was, ‘I’ll come back,’ and she always keeps her promises.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she came back this summer some time,” Arthur said. “Anyway I know she said they’d sail from England.”
“Yes but by that time we’ll all be away.” Laura’s voice held a disappointed note. “We’re going to Marblehead in a week or two for the whole summer and you’re going to Weymouth, Rosie, aren’t you?”
Rosie nodded. “Only for two weeks though.”