ill's incapacities for a grander role in life. In
reality that part of a lofty manhood to which he at first sight seemed
fitted, was not his; for, properly speaking, he was not an actual man,
but a boy--a grand and glorious boy, if you will, but yet a very boy;
and at length he met the fate of a boy, as we shall learn.

Once more we were engaged upon a wreck. But this time it was in no
hyperborean tempest that we were called forth, but when the very
sweetest airs of June were blowing. The case demanding our aid was that
of a wrecking schooner which had gaily left her moorings in New York
harbor to pick up a summer's living along the coast, but had
inadvertently cut up some of her capers rather too near our beach, and
so with one fine ebb tide found herself stranded. As it was an instance
of sickness in the regularly graduated and scientific college itself,
our whole shore was intensely 'tickled' at the accident. And again, as
this doctress, like many another ailing leech, was quite incapable of
curing her own suffering, her toddy-blossom-faced bully of a New York
captain was pleased to salute old Bill with cup high in air, and beg
that he would take a sufficient force and heave the distressed craft
into deep water. Thus a crew of us were called together and set to work
at the vessel. As the weather was so warm and beautiful, and as bed and
board were at this time to be had on the beach, we agreed among us that
our convenience would be the better served by taking up our temporary
quarters near the scene of our labors. Now, the place where we were
offered the necessary accommodation consisted of an ancient plank-built
tenement, which stood behind a sand-ridge that a far younger Atlantic
than ours had piled up, and then, retreating, abandoned. In winter this
rude domicile was bare and tenantless; but in the summer months it was
usually occupied by some thriftless gammer or gaffer from the main-land,
who, having stocked it with a few of the coarsest household goods, and
whatever provisions came to hand, offered entertainment to such wreckers
and 'soundsers' as happened to be in its vicinity. The present incumbent
of the hostel was a woman, claiming to be a widow, of the name of Rose;
bearing in most respects no resemblance whatever to any of her
predecessors. Where she was born, or had hitherto resided, none of us
knew: all that gossip could, gather was that she had unexpectedly
descended from a passing vessel with her effec