ant
job of hanging her; but the verdict was manslaughter, the sentence
imprisonment for life.

"So she was consigned to jail, but very soon allowed to go out
occasionally to do a day's work."

"Oh, Uncle Edward, is she alive now?" Gracie asked, with a look of
alarm.

"Yes, I am told she is disabled by disease, and lives in the poorhouse.
But you need not be frightened, little girlie; she is not at all likely
to come to 'Sconset, and if she does we will take good care that she is
not allowed to harm you."

"And I don't suppose she'd want to either, unless we had done something
to make her angry," said Lulu.

"But we are going to Nantucket Town to stay a while when we leave
'Sconset," remarked Grace uneasily.

"But that woman will not come near you, daughter; you need, not have the
least fear of it," the captain said, drawing his little girl to his knee
with a tender caress.

"Ah," said Mr. Dinsmore, "I heard the other day of a curiosity at
Nantucket which we must try to see while there. I think the story
connected with it will particularly interest you ladies and the little
girls."

"Oh, grandpa, tell it!" cried Rosie; "please do; a story is just what we
want this dull day."

The others joined in the request, and Mr. Dinsmore kindly complied, all
gathering closely about him, anxious to catch every word.

"The story is this: Nearly a hundred years ago there lived in Nantucket
a sea-captain named Coffin, who had a little daughter of whom he was
very fond."

Gracie glanced up smilingly into her father's face and nestled closer to
him.

"Just as I am of mine," said his answering look and smile as he drew
her closer still.

But Mr. Dinsmore's story was going on.

"It was Captain Coffin's custom to bring home some very desirable gift
to his little girl whenever he returned from a voyage. At one time, when
about to sail for the other side of the Atlantic, he said to her that he
was determined on this voyage to find and bring home to her something
that no other little girl ever had or ever could have."

"Oh, grandpa, what could that be?" exclaimed little Walter.

"Wait a moment and you shall hear," was the reply.

"What the captain brought on coming back was a wax baby, a very
life-like representation of an infant six months old. He said it was a
wax cast of the Dauphin of France, that poor unfortunate son of Louis
XVI. and Marie Antoinette; that he had found it in a convent, and paid
for it a sum of mon