lunge
forward and sink to the bottom, so that nothing was left above water but
part of the two funnels. The splendid lifeboat was partly drawn down,
but not upset. She rose again like a cork, and in a few seconds freed
herself from water through the discharging tubes in her bottom. The men
struggling in the water were quickly rescued, and the boat, having
finished her noble work, made for the shore amid cheers of triumph and
joy.

Among all the passengers in that lifeboat there was only one whose
visage expressed nothing but unutterable woe.

"Why, Mr Bright," said Miss Gentle, who clung to one of the thwarts
beside him, and was struck by his appearance, "you seem to have broken
down all at once. What has happened?"

"The mail-bags!" groaned Mr Bright.

"Why do you take so deep an interest in the mails?" asked Miss Gentle.

"Because I happen to be connected with the post-office; and though I
have no charge of them, I can't bear to see them lost," said Mr Bright
with another groan, as he turned his eyes wistfully--not to the shore,
at which all on board were eagerly gazing--but towards the wreck of the
Royal Mail steamer _Trident_, the top of whose funnels rose black and
defiant in the midst of the raging waves.

CHAPTER SIX.

TREATS OF POVERTY, PRIDE, AND FIDELITY.

Behind a very fashionable square in a very unfashionable little street,
in the west end of London, dwelt Miss Sarah Lillycrop.

That lady's portion in this life was a scanty wardrobe, a small
apartment, a remarkably limited income, and a tender, religious spirit.
From this it will be seen that she was rich as well as poor.

Her age was, by a curious coincidence, exactly proportioned to her
income--the one being forty pounds, and the other forty years. She
added to the former, with difficulty, by teaching, and to the latter,
unavoidably, by living.

By means of a well-known quality styled economy, she more than doubled
her income, and by uniting prayer with practice and a gracious mien she
did good, as it were, at the rate of five hundred, or five thousand, a
year.

It could not be said, however, that Miss Lillycrop lived well in the
ordinary sense of that expression.

To those who knew her most intimately it seemed a species of standing
miracle that she contrived to exist at all, for she fed chiefly on toast
and tea. Her dietary resulted in an attenuated frame and a thread-paper
constitution. Occasionally she indulged in an egg, s