Florence Douglas had now been an inmate of Mrs. Armstrong's household for some months. She avoided making acquaintances, and therefore was often lonely. But she was buoyed up by the thought that Richard Dewey was somewhere in the State, and that the two messengers whom she had sent out would eventually find him. She felt great confidence in Ben, and also in Bradley, who had impressed her as an honest, straightforward man, though illiterate and not at all times superior to temptation.