into port as close to you as I
could. About ten days ago I had a good catch on the Banks and sailed for
home, bound for Boston. A heavy fog came up, and we lay to for more than
twenty-four hours. During the night, heard cries, and my mate, Jim
Brown, stuck to it that some ship must have run ashore; and he was
right, for when the fog lifted we saw the masts of a three-master
sticking out of water, close on shore, and about a mile from where we
lay. We up sail and ran down as close as we dared to see if there was
anybody living on the wreck. We couldn't see anybody, but I sent out Jim
Brown with a boat to make a thorough search. In about an hour he came
back, bringing a half-drowned woman and just the nicest, chubbiest,
little black-eyed girl baby that you ever saw in your life. Jim said the
woman was lashed to a spar, and when he first saw her, there was a man
in the water swimming and trying to push the spar towards the land, but
before he reached him the man sunk and he didn't get another sight of
him."

"Oh, my poor father!" cried Celeste. The letter dropped from her hands
and the tears rushed into her eyes.

"Shall I finish reading it?" asked Quincy, picking up the letter.

Celeste nodded, and he read on:

"I gave the woman some brandy and she came to long enough to tell me who
she was. She said her name was Linda Chester or Chessman, I couldn't
tell just which. Her husband's name was Charles, and he was an artist.
He had a brother in Boston named Robert, and they were on their way to
that city. The wrecked ship was the Canadian Belle, bound from Liverpool
to Boston. I didn't tell her her husband was drowned. I gave her some
more brandy and she came to again and said her husband left a lot of
pictures in London with Roper & Son, on Ludgate Hill. I asked her where
she came from and she said from Heathfield, in Sussex. She said no more
and we couldn't bring her to again. She died in about an hour and we
buried her at sea. I noticed that her nightdress had a name stamped on
it different from what she gave me, and so I cut it out and send it in
this letter. Now, I've heard you and Heppy say that if you could find a
nice little girl baby that you would adopt her and bring her up. I sold
out my cargo at Portland, and so I've put in here, and I'll stay till
you and Heppy have time to drive down here and make up your minds
whether you'll take this handsome little baby off my hands. Come right
along, quick, for I must be