as he plaintively muttered, "Poor Texas!
Poor little Texas!" in response to her caresses.

Then, after a little, came a new phrase his mistress had long been
trying to teach him, but which, with the obstinacy of his kind, he
would never repeat. It came very softly now, as he tilted about on her
white wrist, and cocked his head around with a sidelong, upward glance,
"_Dear_ Hope!"

"Oh, hear!" she cried delighted. "Isn't that sweet of him? Dear
Texas! Hope's pretty Texas! Was he nearly frightened to death in the
storm?"

She forgot terror and surrounding discomforts for one minute, the next
her heart stood still, as two sailors entered with a quantity of
life-preservers, and amid rising clamor and confusion, the passengers
began their preparations for departure by the boats. The storm's fury
seemed to have spent itself, and the fiercer noises outside were no
longer audible, only that steady chopping--chopping, that no one really
understood. Perhaps this only intensified the heart-broken sobbings of
the women and children, and the occasional groanings of strong men, who
could no longer control their sense of helpless misery. Hope, sprang
to her feet, her nerves giving way at last. "Oh, this is awful!" she
muttered, turning her head wildly to left and right, like a creature
suddenly caged. "I begin to feel the fire, Faith--don't you? It is
stifling me!"

She was on the point of breaking into a hysterical shriek when a hand
was laid upon her arm, and Lady Moreham said quickly,

"No, my child! It is only the closeness after a storm; not the fire.
That is far away, and still smothered between walls in the hold. It
may never break out, if they can get at it before it burns through to
the air. They are working manfully, and will do everything to save us,
and your brave father is at their head."

"Oh, if I could see papa! If I could be sure he is safe! He never
thinks of himself where there is danger."

She was trembling all over, and Faith, catching her excitement, pressed
closer, wide-eyed and shivering. Lady Moreham saw that, though they
had been brave as mature women, so far, they were breaking down under
the strain, unsupported by any older and stronger relative. The
atmosphere was enervating here, and emotion is contagious. Glancing
quickly around, she formed her resolution, and throwing an arm around
each, said gently,

"Come! I have often heard you speak of the library. We can go there
an