rted from
the hull, and rose and fell with the sweep of the waves. The final
crash must come in a few minutes. The steward now took Angelo in his
arms, promising to save him or die. At this very moment the foremast
fell, and with it disappeared the deck and those who stood on it. The
steward and the child were washed ashore soon after, dead, though not
yet cold. The two Italians, Celeste and Ossoli, held for a moment by the
rigging, but were swept off by the next wave. Margaret, last seen at the
foot of the mast, in her white nightdress, with her long hair hanging
about her shoulders, is thought to have sunk at once. Two others, cook
and carpenter, were able to save themselves by swimming, and might,
alas! have saved her, had she been minded to make the attempt.

What strain of the heroic in her mind overcame the natural instinct to
do and dare all upon the chance of saving her own life, and those so
dear to her, we shall never know. No doubt the separation involved in
any such attempt appeared to her an abandonment of her husband and
child. Resting in this idea, she could more easily nerve herself to
perish with them than to part from them. She and the babe were feeble
creatures to be thrown upon the mercy of the waves, even with the
promised aid. Her husband, young and strong, was faithful unto death,
and would not leave her. Both of them, with fervent belief, regarded
death as the entrance to another life, and surely, upon its very
threshold, sought to do their best. So we must end our questioning and
mourning concerning them with a silent acquiescence in what was to be.

* * * * *

A friend of Margaret, who visited the scene on the day after the
catastrophe, was persuaded that seven resolute men could have saved
every soul on board the vessel. Through the absence of proper system and
discipline, the life-boat, though applied for early on the morning of
the wreck, did not arrive until one o'clock in the afternoon, when the
sea had become so swollen by the storm that it was impossible to launch
it. One hopes, but scarcely believes, that this state of things has been
amended before this time.

The bodies of Margaret and her husband were never found. That of Angelo
was buried at Fire Island, with much mourning on the part of the
surviving sailors, whose pet and playmate he had been. It was afterwards
removed to the cemetery at Mt. Auburn, where, beneath a marble monument
which commemor