he engines and
back her on shore at full speed. She began to settle down fast by the
head, and their only chance was in the boats, which unfortunately had
nearly all become jammed in the davits. Every one appears to have
behaved admirably. They managed at last to launch one of the boats,
and to put the women into it; and they were trying to get out the
others, when the vessel went down suddenly, not a quarter of an hour
after striking the reef.'

'Vincent could swim, papa,' said Mabel, with gleaming eyes.

'He was not a first-rate swimmer,' said Mr. Langton, 'I remember that,
and even a first-rate swimmer would have found it hard work to reach
the shore, if he had not been drawn down with the ship, as seems to
have been the fate of most of the poor fellows. Still of course there
is always hope.'

'And he is dead! Vincent dead! It seems so hard, so very, very sad,'
said Mabel, and began to cry softly.

'Cry, darling,' said Mrs. Langton, 'it will do you good. I'm sure I
wish _I_ could cry like that, it would be such a relief. But you know
papa says we may hope yet; we won't give up all hope till we're
obliged to; we must be brave. You really don't care about coming in to
dinner? You won't have a little something sent up to your room? Well,
I feel as if food would choke me myself, but I must go in to keep papa
company. Will you tell this sad news to Dolly and Colin, and ask
Fraeulein to keep them with her till bedtime? I can't bear to see them
just yet.'

Mr. Langton's decorous concern did not interfere with his appetite,
and Mrs. Langton seemed rather relieved at being able to postpone her
grief for the present, and so Mabel was left to break the disaster,
and the fate there was too much reason to fear for Vincent, to her
younger brother and sister--a painful task, for Holroyd had been very
dear to all three of them. Fraeulein Mozer, too, wept with a more than
sentimental sorrow for the young man she had tried to help, who would
need her assistance never again.

The tidings had reached Mark early that same afternoon. He was walking
home through the City from some 'holiday-classes' he had been
superintending at St. Peter's, when the heading 'Loss of a passenger
steamer with ---- lives' on the contents-sheets of the evening papers
caught his eye, and led him, when established with a 'Globe' in one of
the Underground Railway carriages, to turn with a languid interest to
the details. He started when he saw the name of