oned, about his father.
The pastor was very apt to understand what was stirring in people's
hearts; and he knew Oliver's at this moment. He explained to him that a
sailor had declared, on landing at Hull, that the ship in which he was
had spoken with a Dutch vessel, off the Humber, in the night, by the
light of lanterns only, when a voice was heard, as if from the deck of
the Dutchman, crying out, "Will some one have the charity to tell the
wife of Linacre of the Levels that he is saved?" The sailors had some
fears about this voice--thought the message odd--fancied the voice was
like what they should suppose a ghost's to be; and at length, persuaded
one another that it came, not from any ship, but from the air overhead;
and that the message meant that Linacre was dead, and that his soul was
saved. When they came ashore, however, and found what had befallen the
Levels, they began to doubt whether it was not, after all, the voice of
a flesh and blood man that had called out to them. When the pastor now
heard how the miller was floated off in his mill, he had little doubt of
the good man having been picked up in the Humber, by a vessel sailing
for Holland, which could not stop to set him ashore, but which now
contained him, safe and well. Within two months, he would be heard of
or seen, it might fairly be hoped.

Mrs Linacre was kindly taken care of in a farm-house, near the spring--
that farm-house where she had often taken her copper money to be changed
for silver: but she had been little within doors, day or night. She had
paced all day by the brink of the flood; and as long as the moon was up,
had sat at night on a rising ground, looking over the waters towards the
Red-hill. She had discovered that the mill was gone, when other eyes
could distinguish nothing so far off. No one had a glass to lend her--
so, at least, it was said; but some whispered that a glass might have
been procured, but that it was thought she could see only what would
distress her, and nothing that could do her any good.

She was on the brink of the water when the boat came near. She would
have thrown herself in to meet her children, if a neighbour had not been
there to hold her back.

Oliver's first words to her were, that he believed his father was safe
on his way to Holland, and would soon be coming back. The pastor's
first words were, as he placed Mildred in her arms--

"Two children are here restored to you. Will you not patientl