evidently the pride of the housekeeper.

A white cloth covered the rude wooden table that stood in the centre of
the room, and the mistress of the dwelling was hurrying to and fro,
evidently intent on preparing the evening repast, while from the
bake-kettle, that had just been taken from the fire, the fragrance of
newly-baked bread ascended, filling the place with its odor; an odor by
no means ungrateful to appetites, sharpened by manly labor and healthy
sea-breezes.

While the busy matron was thus happily employed in her labors of
love,--for such they emphatically were to her,--the daughter, a girl of
eighteen years of age, and two younger sons, were with their father on
the beach, assisting him in sorting, and putting in barrels, a quantity
of fish, designed for the family's use during the winter.

"It will be a fearful night, father," said the girl, pausing from her
labors, and looking out on the black, swollen waves, while the wind, as
it swept furiously by, more than once obliged her to cling to the rock
for support.

"It will be a fearful night, father," she repeated,--and, hesitating for
a moment, she added, "and brother William is at sea."

"Ay," responded the brawny, stalwart, and good-humored looking man, "it
will be, as you say, lass, a stormy night, and a terrible one, I reckon,
to poor seamen,--for there is more than William on the ocean."

A faint flush tinged with a deeper hue the girl's countenance, already
bronzed by exposure to sun and wind, while her dark grey eye grew moist