And so the weeks passed until the lengthening days of June were well advanced, and Mr. Winslow announced that he had chartered a small auxiliary schooner and that she was ready for the northern voyage, and then for two nights before their departure for St. John's, where the schooner was in waiting, Bobby could scarcely sleep at all, so eager was he to return home to Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel, that they might know he still lived, for he often thought of them there in the cabin, very lonely without him.