Also published as The Cargo of the Madalena.Bendy, whose family runs a scrivener's shop in fifteenth-century London, solves the mystery when the master printer, William Caxton, fails to receive the paper shipped to him.

    Sent to boarding school after his parents split up, Gerald changes during the course of the school year from an innocent boy desperate to conform to something of a rebel, sceptical of the pretensions of those about him.

    Her family reluctantly allows her to enter Western Seminary--a progressive school for its time-- where she and her schoolmates defy convention by studying serious academic subjects. Her adjustment to school, her roommates, and romance make an adequate framework for this book, the chief interest of which is its convincing portrayal of mid-western life at the time, and the particular problems which then faced intellectual young ladies.