tears and preparing to close the lattice; for she was no whit inclined to
imitate the first wife of Zadig.

"But stop, and hear my story out," cried the young sailor. "I tell you
we spoke a brig yesterday afternoon, bound in from Old England. And who
do you think I saw standing on deck, well and hearty, only a bit thinner
than he was five months ago?"

Mary leaned from the window, but could not speak. "Why, it was your
husband himself," continued the generous seaman. "He and three others
saved themselves on a spar, when the Blessing turned bottom upwards. The
brig will beat into the bay by daylight, with this wind, and you'll see
him here to-morrow. There's the comfort I bring you, Mary, and so good
night."

He hurried away, while Mary watched him with a doubt of waking reality,
that seemed stronger or weaker as he alternately entered the shade of the
houses, or emerged into the broad streaks of moonlight. Gradually,
however, a blessed flood of conviction swelled into her heart, in
strength enough to overwhelm her, had its increase been more abrupt.
Her first impulse was to rouse her sister-in-law, and communicate the new-
born gladness. She opened the chamber-door, which had been closed in the
course of the night, though not latched, advanced to the bedside, and was
about to lay her hand upon the slumberer's shoulder. But then she
remembered that Margaret would awake to thoughts of death and woe,
rendered not the less bitter by their contrast with her own felicity.
She suffered the rays of the lamp to fall upon the unconscious form of
the bereaved one. Margaret lay in unquiet sleep, and the drapery was
displaced around her; her young cheek was rosy-tinted, and her lips half
opened in a vivid smile; an expression of joy, debarred its passage by