en a whirling and a whirling the Lord of heaven
only knows how long--how long--Ben Benson, be you crazy? Wasn't it her
scream as woke you up? Ma' be there's a spark of life yet, and you a
talking over her here. Go home, you old heathen; go home at 'onst. Poor
young critter, I didn't like you over much, but now I'd give ten years
of my old life to be sarten there was a drop of warm blood in this
little heart!"

Ben knelt over the governess as he muttered those feeling words, and
laid his great kind hand over the heart, but the touch made even his
strong nerves recoil.

"It ain't a beatin'--it doesn't stir--she seems to be a freezing now
under my hand. But, I'll try. God have mercy on the poor thing! I'll
try."

Ben took the body in his arms, and carried it to the boat-house; but
with all his earnestness and strength, he had no power to give back
life, where it had been so rudely quenched. Pure or not, the blood in
those veins was frozen to ice, and though Ben heaped up wood on his
hearth till the flames roared up the wide-throated chimney, there was
not heat enough to thaw a single drop. At last, Ben gave up his own
exertions, and laid the dead girl reverently on his own couch; kneeling
meekly by her side, and then he began repeating the Lord's Prayer over
her again and again: for, when the boatman was in great trouble he
always went back, like a little child, to the prayer learned at his
mother's knee.

CHAPTER LXXX.

WHO WAS LINA?

The sound of sleigh-bells stopping suddenly and a sharp knock at his own
door, aroused Ben from his mournful prayers. He got up and turned the
latch. To his astonishment, it was broad daylight. The persons who had
aroused him were James and Ralph Harrington.

"Ben," said Ralph, stepping eagerly forward, "tell us--repeat to James
what you refused to tell Lina. On your life, on your honor, dear old
Ben: tell him whose child she is."

"All that you know about her. I am sure there is something you can
explain. If you ever loved her or care for me, speak out now. You said
that she had gone off because you refused to tell her something."

Ben had been praying in the presence of death, and there were both power
and pathos in his voice as he clasped those rough hands and said:

"As the great God aloft is his witness! Ralph Harrington, Ben Benson
spoke nothing but the truth when he said that ere."

"But you will tell us, for her dear sake, you will tell us."

"Yes, Master Ralp