ining to attract his notice, and divert him
from his melancholy.

Day after day, during the long bright summer of 1831, Flora had watched
the old man come to the spot on the beach where the dead body of his son
first touched the shore, and stand there for hours, looking out over the
broad sea, his eyes shaded from the rays of the sun by his bony red
hand, as if he expected the return of the lost one. During these fits of
abstraction Nep would stretch himself along the beach at the fisherman's
feet, his head sunk between his fore-paws, as motionless as the statue
of a dog cut out of stone. The moment the old man dropped the raised
hand from his face, Nep would leap to his feet, look up wistfully into
his master's eyes, and follow him home.

This touching scene had drawn tears from Flora more than once, and she
loved the good dog for his devoted attachment to the grief-stricken
desolate old man. When, however, the fishing season returned, Jarvis
roused himself from the indulgence of hopeless grief. The little
cockle-shell of a boat was once more launched upon the blue sea, and
Jarvis might daily be seen spreading its tiny white sheet to the breeze,
while the noble buff Newfoundland dog resumed his place in the bow.

Jarvis came regularly every day to the house to offer fish for
sale--cod, whitings, herrings, whatever fish chance had given to his
net. Flora was glad to observe something like cheerfulness once more
illumine the old sailor's face. She always greeted him with kind words,
and inquired affectionately after his welfare; and without alluding to
his heavy family afflictions, made him sensible that she deeply
sympathised in his grief.

Things went on smoothly, until one terrible night in October, Jarvis and
his only remaining son, a strong powerful man of thirty, had been off
with several experienced seamen in the pilot-boat, to put a pilot on
board a large vessel which was toiling her way through the storm to
London. Coming back, the wind rose to a gale, and the sailors, in trying
to enter the harbour, ran the boat against one of the piers with such
violence, that it upset, and the whole party were thrown into the water.

Old Jarvis was an admirable swimmer, and soon gained the beach, as did
most of the others, two of their number being rescued from death by the
exertions of the brave dog. One alone was missing--Harry Jarvis was the
lost man.

From that hour Flora had never seen the old Jarvis or his dog. Th