deal
might be forgiven, even to a man as old as Byles Gridley, looking upon
such a face,--so lovely, yet so marked with the traces of recent
suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling in
some fearful dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a slight
convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and the cry escaped from
them,--how heart-breaking when there is none to answer it,--"Mother!"

Gone back again through all the weary, chilling years of her girlhood to
that hardly remembered morning of her life when the cry she uttered was
answered by the light of loving eyes, the kiss of clinging lips, the
embrace of caressing arms!

"It is better to wake her," Mrs. Lindsay said; "she is having a troubled
dream. Wake up, my child, here is a friend waiting to see you."

She laid her hand very gently on Myrtle's forehead. Myrtle opened her
eyes, but they were vacant as yet.

"Are we dead?" she said. "Where am I? This is n't heaven--there are no
angels--Oh, no, no, no! don't send me to the other place--fifteen
years,--only fifteen years old--no father, no mother--nobody loved me.
Was it wicked in me to live?" Her whole theological training was
condensed in that last brief question.

The, old man took her hand and looked her in the face, with a wonderful
tenderness in his squared features. "Wicked to live, my dear? No
indeed! Here! look at me, my child; don't you know your old friend Byles
Gridley?"

She was awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a
natural train of thought. But her recollection passed over everything
that had happened since Thursday morning.

"Where is the boat I was in?" she said. "I have just been in the water,
and I was dreaming that I was drowned. Oh! Mr. Gridley, is that you?
Did you pull me out of the water?"

"No, my dear, but you are out of it, and safe and sound: that is the main
point. How do you feel now you are awake?"

She yawned, and stretched her arms and looked round, but did not answer
at first. This was all natural, and a sign that she was coming right.
She looked down at her dress. It was not inappropriate to her sex, being
a loose gown that belonged to one of the girls in the house.

"I feel pretty well," she answered, "but a little confused. My boat will
be gone, if you don't run and stop it now. How did you get me into dry
clothes so quick?"

Master Byles Gridley found himself suddenly possessed by a large