eable to them, and I trust you will
be happy in their society. I cannot part with you without saying that
your presence in my house has given me much pleasure--the only one now
left to me, that of recollection. Although you are very quiet, for one
who has only reached your years, yet the sound of your footstep about
the house called sweet though sad memories of my only daughter, and I
thank you for them. If I thought only of myself, I should keep you here
till the end, but there are times when it is more noble to resign than
to fulfill the dearest wishes of our heart."

* * * * *

It was in the summer of 1607 that Miss Vyvyan, attended by her waiting
woman, sailed from England, for the colony of Virginia, in the ship
Queen Elizabeth, from which she had just been wrecked, when we took up
the narrative of her early life. To that period of time we will now
return.

CHAPTER VI.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight.
Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic.
Stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean,
Speaks and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

* * * * *

And thou too who so 'ere thou art
That readest this brief psalm
As one by one thy hopes depart
Be resolute and calm.

Oh fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

As the shipwrecked young lady lay on the cold, rough beach, amid the
dead bodies, with the hoarse roar of the ocean sounding in her ears, and
the heavy, wet clouds of mist clinging about her, indifferent to life or
death, the recollection of the ship being pursued by buccaneers and
driven far out of her course came back to her mind, and then being
caught in a hurricane and seeing another vessel battling with the
tempest, and both ships furiously hurried on toward a wild, rocky coast,
the vessels crashing on shore and rebounding again, and some one
lifting her into a boat, and then she remembered no more. While these
recollections were passing through her brain, she raised herself upon
her elbow and looked around. Death everywhere, the ocean with its
floating corpses and wreckage lay before her.