d so strangely, that her
daughter feared she was losing her mind. All day long she would sit with
her sad eyes on the floor, and she had not smiled since she came aboard.

When the messenger came from the shore, with the command from Hugh Price
for her to come to the home he had provided, she started like a guilty
person detected in crime. Turning her great, sad eyes on the man who had
been their protector in their hour of peril, she asked:

"Shall I go?"

"The place of a good wife is with her husband," he answered.

Then Rebecca, appealing to him, asked:

"Must I obey Hugh Price?"

"Is he your father?"

"No."

"You are of age?"

"I am."

"Then choose with whom you will live, Hugh Price, or with your brother
on the James River."

"I will live with my brother."

Mrs. Price cast her eyes on the river filled with floating ice and,
shuddering, said:

"The water is so dark and cold, and the boat is so frail."

"Shall I take you in mine?" asked Sir Albert.

"Will you?"

"If you desire it."

The boat was lowered, and Mrs. Price was tenderly assisted into it. Then
he climbed down into the stern, seized the rudder, and gave the command
to his four sturdy oarsmen:

"Pull ashore."

It was a bleak, cold, wintry day. The wind swept down the ice-filled
river. From the deck, closely muffled in wraps and robes, Rebecca saw
her mother and Sir Albert depart for the snow-clad shore. Her eyes were
blinded with tears, for she knew how unhappy her mother was. As she
watched the boat gliding forward amid the floating blocks of ice, she
was occasionally alarmed at the Deeming narrow escapes it made.

The current was very swift, for the tide was running out, and tons of
ice were all about the boat; but a skilful hand was at the helm, and the
little boat darted hither and thither, from point to point, safely
through the waters. Once she was quite sure it would be crushed between
two small icebergs; but it glided swiftly out of danger.

The nearer they approached the shore, the denser became the ice pack,
and the danger accordingly increased. At almost every moment, Rebecca
uttered an exclamation of fear lest the boat should be crushed.

Just as she thought all danger was over, and when they were within a
short distance of shore, a heavy cake of ice, which had been sucked
under by the current, suddenly burst upward with such fury as to crush
the boat. The shrieks of the unfortunate occupants filled the air for a
sin