ing Scud,
who that morning had dressed himself gayly in his state-room to go on
shore and meet his wife,--singing and jesting as he did so.

This is all that you have to learn in the room below; but as we stand
there, we hear a trampling of feet in the apartment above,--the quick
yet careful opening and shutting of doors,--and voices come and go about
the house, and whisper consultations on the stairs. Now comes the roll
of wheels, and the Doctor's gig drives up to the door; and, as he goes
creaking up with his heavy boots, we will follow and gain admission to
the dimly-lighted chamber.

Two gossips are sitting in earnest, whispering conversation over a small
bundle done up in an old flannel petticoat. To them the doctor is about
to address himself cheerily, but is repelled by sundry signs and sounds
which warn him not to speak. Moderating his heavy boots as well as he
is able to a pace of quiet, he advances for a moment, and the petticoat
is unfolded for him to glance at its contents; while a low, eager,
whispered conversation, attended with much head-shaking, warns him that
his first duty is with somebody behind the checked curtains of a bed in
the farther corner of the room. He steps on tiptoe, and draws the
curtain; and there, with closed eye, and cheek as white as wintry snow,
lies the same face over which passed the shadow of death when that
ill-fated ship went down.

This woman was wife to him who lies below, and within the hour has been
made mother to a frail little human existence, which the storm of a
great anguish has driven untimely on the shores of life,--a precious
pearl cast up from the past eternity upon the wet, wave-ribbed sand of
the present. Now, weary with her moanings, and beaten out with the
wrench of a double anguish, she lies with closed eyes in that passive
apathy which precedes deeper shadows and longer rest.

Over against her, on the other side of the bed, sits an aged woman in an
attitude of deep dejection, and the old man we saw with her in the
morning is standing with an anxious, awestruck face at the foot of the
bed.

The doctor feels the pulse of the woman, or rather lays an inquiring
finger where the slightest thread of vital current is scarcely
throbbing, and shakes his head mournfully. The touch of his hand rouses
her,--her large wild, melancholy eyes fix themselves on him with an
inquiring glance, then she shivers and moans,--

"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!--Jamie, Jamie!"

"Come, co