"
"No, Auntie," said Quincy, "Tom and I will run over to Vienna, and if
we don't find her we will push on to William Tell's republic. We will
write you often--Tom one day and I the next."
"I have often wondered," said Quincy to Tom two days later as they
were on the cars speeding to Vienna--"I have often wondered," he
repeated, "how my mother could let me go away and stay away from her
for fourteen long years. That she loves me, her letters show plainly.
She says often that I am all she has in the world, but she never sent
for me to come and see her nor did she ever come to see me. How do
you explain it, Tom?"
"Very easily. That disaster at sea and the loss of your father has
given her a horror of the ocean which she cannot overcome. She fears
to trust herself or one she loves to its mercies again. Perhaps we
can't understand her feelings, but you must respect them."
"I do," replied Quincy. "I have never doubted her love for me, and
your theory, perhaps, explains her failure to manifest her love more
forcibly."
On the train they made a most agreeable acquaintance and regretted
their inability to accept his invitation to visit him. His name was
Louis Wallingford. He was an American, born in Missouri. He had been
a reporter, then editor. His passion was music and he had forsaken a
literary life for that of a musician. He had joined an orchestra much
in demand at private parties given by the wealthy residents of St.
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