hardy veteran looked like the
spectre of his former self. His only daughter, a pretty girl of
eighteen, was engaged to marry the ostler at the Crown Inn, a
fine-looking young man, who had lately come from London. He saw Nancy
Jarvis, became enamoured of the fisherman's daughter, told his tale of
love, and was accepted. The old man was rather averse to the match; for,
in his eyes, no man was worthy of his Nancy, who was not a genuine son
of the sea. Robert Green at last succeeded in overcoming his nautical
prejudices; and a day was fixed for the wedding. Nancy's rosy, artless
face was all smiles and sunshine, as night after night she sauntered
past Flora's windows, leaning upon the arm of her betrothed. Only two
days previous to the one appointed for the wedding, the father learned
from old captain P----, whose vessel had just returned from London, that
Robert Green had a wife and two children in the great city; that the
poor young woman, hearing that his vessel was from the Port of ----, had
come on board, to make some inquiries respecting her faithless husband;
and that she and her little ones were now on their way to join him.

This distressing intelligence was rashly communicated without any
previous warning, to Nancy Jarvis. The unfortunate girl, seized with a
sudden frenzy, rushed to the pier and flung herself into the sea, when
the tide was running out; and her distracted parents never succeeded in
recovering the body of the poor maniac. The worthless libertine, on
whose account this desperate act was committed, decamped in the night;
and so escaped the vengeance of the old fisherman and his sons.

Davy Jarvis, the old seaman's youngest son, a fine lad of sixteen, was
drowned in the month of July, only a few weeks after the tragical death
of his sister. Flora and Lyndsay had been eye-witnesses of this fresh
calamity. Every fine afternoon the young Davy was in the habit of going
off with another boy, of his own age, in his father's boat. When they
had rowed a couple of miles from the shore, they lay to, stripped, and
went into the water to swim, diving and sporting among the waves, like
two sea-gulls taking their pastime in the summer ocean.

Lyndsay had often watched them, and admired the dexterity with which
the younger Jarvis would tumble himself from the water into the boat,
which was left rocking upon the billows, and steady it for his comrade
to get in. They would then resume their garments, and row to the