nt occurred which had a
material influence over the future destiny of Arthur Sydney. During
one of his voyages, accident revealed to his notice the wreck of what
had once apparently been a noble vessel. He immediately despatched a
boat with a portion of his crew to survey the ruins, and ascertain if
any of the passengers survived. They returned, bringing with them the
inanimate form of a lovely girl, seemingly not more than eighteen
years old. Every effort was used for her speedy restoration to
consciousness, but it was nearly two hours ere she opened her eyes,
and then she was so weak as to be quite unable to move or speak. Her
delicate frame was evidently exhausted by long fasting, and the
fearful scenes she must have witnessed; and for the whole of that day
Sydney watched beside her with feelings of the strongest sympathy for
her sufferings. The next morning she was much better, she could
recline in an easy chair, and had acquired sufficient strength to
relate her history. She was a native of Italy--the youngest daughter
of an ancient and noble family, whose father having been undeservedly
regarded by the government with suspicion, was threatened with
imprisonment, and had barely time to escape with his household on
board of a ship bound for America. That vessel was the one whose wreck
Captain Sydney had espied, and of the large number of souls within
it, who had departed but a few weeks before from Italia's sunny
shores, but one remained--that gentle and helpless maiden. For three
days she had continued upon the wreck without the slightest
sustenance, haunted by the memories of the terrible past, and
expecting that each instant would dash the frail fabric to pieces, and
precipitate her also into the deep, dark sea, till at length
consciousness forsook her, and in a death-like swoon she forgot the
dangers by which she was surrounded.

With tears of anguish she now spoke of the dear ones lost to her
forever on earth--the loved mother, the noble father, the darling
sisters, and the cherished brother, over each one of whom she had
beheld the wild waves close. Then she lamented her desolation, utterly
destitute, and nearing the shores of a foreign land, where no familiar
voice would accord her a welcome. There was a similarity in her
situation to what had once been his own, and as Sydney listened, the
story inspired him with an interest in that fair being such as he had
never till then experienced for a fellow-creature.