and the pride; the courage and the enterprise; the love and the
yearnings after their kin; the speculations of the present, and the
calculations of the future, which occupied their minds, or were
cherished in their bosoms? All--all _wrecked_!

[Footnote 1: We presume the gentleman means gunpowder.--ED.]

Days, weeks, and months rolled away; yet every step that could be taken
to find out the name of the vessel proved unavailing. Although the
conjecture of Forster, that she was one of the many foreign West
Indiamen which had met with a similar fate during that tempestuous
winter, was probably correct; still no clue could be gathered by which
the parentage of the little girl could be ascertained. The linen was,
indeed, marked with initials; but this circumstance offered but a faint
prospect of discovery. Either her relations, convinced of her loss, made
no inquiries, or the name of the vessel in which she had been a
passenger was not known to them. The child had been weaned, and removed
to the cottage, where it occupied much of the attention of the old
housekeeper and Forster, who, despairing of its ever being reclaimed,
determined to bring it up as his own.

Mrs Beazely, the housekeeper, was a good-tempered woman, long past the
grand climacteric, and strongly attached to Forster, with whom she had
resided many years. But, like all women, whether married or single, who
have the responsibility of a household, she would have her own way; and
scolded her master with as little ceremony as if she had been united to
him by matrimonial bonds.

To this Forster quietly submitted; he had lived long enough to be aware
that people are not the happiest who are not under control, and was