currents and eddys, and
where the great rollers came racing in with a tremendous roaring to
burst upon the base of the lighthouse and throw the spray high above
the light itself. It was a wild spot, even in calm weather, but when a
storm blew it became terrible. Then all communication with the mainland
was cut off, and for days at a time the only news that the outside
world had from the lonely lighthouse keeper was the yellow beam of the
lantern that shone from the top of the tower across the desolate
expanse of ugly rocks and roaring waters, where any ship that chanced
to be entrapped was caught in the grip of strange currents and pounded
into matchwood by the breakers.

Grace did not find the life at the lighthouse unpleasant. Her father
was an intelligent and kind-hearted man who gave an eye to her
education himself, and taught her how to read and write. He was also
considered the best boatman on the whole Northumberland coast--the
bravest and most skilful, and it was partly due to his reputation in
these respects that he was made the keeper of the new light on the
Longstone with a large increase in pay and a comfortable home for his
family--for the interior of the lighthouse held several large and
pleasant rooms where the Darlings lived. All of his elder children had
gone off to make their living, and William Darling lived with his wife
and his daughter Grace, who spent her time in reading, helping her
mother with the housework, and, when it was calm, wandering over the
rocks observing the gulls, the sea weeds and the strange sea creatures
that the ocean brought to the surface or that crawled and swam among
the more sheltered rock pools.

But the confinement of the life in the lighthouse was not good for the
growing girl, and Grace never was strong and robust as would be
expected from the daughter of fishermen. Nor was she handsome. But she
possessed a kindly and winning nature, and, as will be seen, the
ability to rise to heights of greatness when necessity called on her to
do so.

When Grace was a young woman of twenty-three a terrible storm burst
suddenly upon the coast and in the twinkling of an eye the reefs about
the lighthouse were a sea of churning foam, while the great waves
racing in from the ocean thundered so mightily at its base that it
seemed as though they must tear it from its foundations and sweep it
away.

A short time before this gale broke, the steamer _Forfarshire_ had
sailed from Hull for