nor understand why the sight of it gave him pleasure; but he felt strongly at that moment that it was a misfortune to be blind.

"All the boats must be out," continued the "How is it that Mr. Scanlan didn't

old man.

want ye to-day, Mike?"

"There was no room for me," the boy answered, with a sigh. "There were men enough to fill all the boats to-day, so Mr. Scanlan said I must wait till next time. It was hard work yesterday to pull in the lines fast enough, and get them baited again. We never stopped hauling a minute all the day, grandfather; and in our boat we caught eight hundred fish, prime ones as ever you saw."

"Good news for the poor, Mike. I always liked the cod-fishery best, though in my young days I was a ready hand for the sealing too. But we've had good reason to remember the dangers of the seal-fishery, Mike," continued the old man, sighing.

"Yes, I know," answered the boy; "it was going after the seals that my father was drowned. Grannie never likes me to ask about it; will you tell me how it happened, grandfather?" The old

man laid his thin hand on the boy's head, as he replied

"Your grandmother doesn't like to think of that time, Mike. Don't ask her any more, and I'll tell you all I can. Your father, Pat Lacy, was a fine lad with a blithe step and a laughing eye, when he married our darlin' Margaret. Ah, but she was the beauty! not one of 'em all was like our Margaret. We lived at St. Johns then, and the Lacys had a cabin close by, so we saw them every day; and by and bye, when you came into the world, grannie would run in whenever she got a chance, just to dandle the baby, and help our pretty Margaret. You were but six months old when the time came round for the sealers to go out, and Pat and my son Mike Murphy were to go in the same brig. The winter had been a bitterly cold one, and the harbour was all frozen over, so that they had to cut the ice with saws to make a passage for the vessels to get out. The weather was bright and fine, and they all worked with a will; so one day in March, everything was ready, and a fleet of sealers went out together, flags flying, guns firing, and crowds to see them go, all cheerin' till they were hoarse.

You'll see St. Johns one day, Mike. The harbour there is long and narrow, with the town on the north shore, sloping upwards. Just at the south-east corner there's a passage they call the Narrows, between high hills out into the open The ice was firm all the way out to the end of the Narrows; but the wind helped the men as they hauled at the ropes, to drag the vessels through the channel, and the harbour was soon clear of them all.

sea.

"Grannie and I took our Margaret, with her baby (that was you, Mike), to live with us while her husband was gone. There was our son Mike's little bed-place for her, and grannie thought it would be better for her than frettin' her poor heart out alone. Pat brought her over in the mornin' before he went aboard the brig. I don't know how it was, but she seemed dazed-like, and hardly spoke when he rattled on about the fine time they'd have, and the big purse of money he'd get for her before the summer was ended. She just looked, looked at him, as if she only half knew what he said, only she held his hand tight, and wouldn't let him go. Her mother went and took the baby from her. 'Come, Margaret,' she said, 'never