THE LINNET.

"He who sends the storm steers the vessel."--_Rev. T. Adams_

August passed and September was almost through and not one word had been
heard of the _Linnet_. Linnet lived through the days and through the
nights, but she thought she would choke to death every night. Days before
she had consented, her mother had gone to her and urged her with every
argument at her command to lock up her house and come home until they
heard. At first, she resented the very thought of it; but Annie Grey was
busy in Middlefield, Marjorie was needed at home, and the hours of the
days seemed never to pass away; at last, worn out with her anguish, she
allowed Captain Rheid to lift her into his carriage and take her to her
mother.

As the days went on Will's father neither ate nor slept; he drove into
Portland every day, and returned at night more stern and more pale than
he went away in the morning.

Linnet lay on her mother's bed and wept, and then slept from exhaustion,
to awake with the cry, "Oh, why didn't I die in my sleep?"

One evening Mrs. Rheid appeared at the kitchen door; her cap and
sunbonnet had fallen off, her gray hair was roughened over her forehead,
her eyes were wild, her lips apart. Her husband had brought her, and sat
outside in his wagon too stupefied to remember that he was leaving his
old wife to stagger into the house alone.

Mrs. West turned from the table, where she was reading her evening
chapter by candle light, and rising caught her before she fell into her
arms. The two old mothers clung to each other and wept together; it
seemed such a little time since they had washed up Linnet's dishes and
set her house in order on the wedding day. Mrs. Rheid thrust a newspaper
into her hand as she heard her husband's step, and went out to meet him
as Mrs. West called Marjorie. Linnet was asleep upon her mother's bed.

"My baby, my poor baby!" cried her mother, falling on her knees beside
the bed, "must you wake up to this?"

She awoke at midnight; but her mother lay quiet beside her, and she did
not arouse her. In the early light she discerned something in her
mother's face, and begged to know what she had to tell.

Taking her into her arms she told her all she knew. It was in the
newspaper. A homeward-bound ship had brought the news. The _Linnet_
had been seen; wrecked, all her masts gone, deserted, not a soul on
board--the captain supposed she went down that night; there was a storm,
and he could not