g reverently at the
babies, until, with Jack's gracious permission, the kind-hearted woman
would tenderly soothe the little ones to sleep.

Among the survivors of the wreck, none could give much information
concerning the babies. Only two were women, and one of these lay ill in
a rough bunk through the remainder of the voyage, raving in her fever of
the brother who bent anxiously over her. (In her delirium, she imagined
that he had been drowned on that terrible night.) Sailor Jack held the
twins before her, but she took no notice of them. Her brother knew
nothing about them or of any of the passengers. He had been a fireman on
the wrecked vessel, and scarcely had been on deck from the hour of
starting until the moment of the wreck. The other rescued woman
frequently had seen a tall nurse with two very young infants on her lap,
and a pale mother dressed in black standing near them; and she
remembered hearing some one say that there was another lady with a young
baby on board, and that the two mothers were sisters, or relatives of
some kind, and that the one with twins had recently become a widow. That
was all. Beyond vaguely wondering how any one could think of taking such
mites of humanity across the ocean, she had given no more thought to
them. Of the men rescued, not one had known of the existence of the
three wee passengers, the only babies on board, as the little creatures
seldom had been taken on deck.

The two mothers, as Jack learned from one of the women, had been made so
ill by the voyage that they rarely had left their state-rooms. Mr.
Robertson, Kate's husband, was known by sight to all as a tall, handsome
man, though very restless and anxious-looking; but, being much occupied
with the care of his wife and child, he had spoken to very few persons
on board the vessel.

This was all Jack could find out, though he never wearied of making
inquiries among the survivors. He was shrewd enough, however, to ask
them to write their names and addresses for him to keep, so that, if the
twins' people (as he called them) ever should be found, they could in
turn communicate with the survivors. The family naturally would want to
inquire about "the other baby and its poor father, and the two mothers,
one of which was a widow in mournin'--poor soul! and the nurse-girl, all
drowned and gone."

Long weeks afterward, one other boat was heard from--the only other one
that was ever found. Its freight of human beings, only seven