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"It would have broken our hearts. 'Home, sweet, sweet home!""

"I wish we had asked Charlotte to bring them to Southampton," said the gentleman.

"Indeed, yes! What joy to meet them-to see the dear faces! I should know them anywhere!"

"And Dolly such a baby?" said her husband. "Are you reckoning on having a little poppet to dandle?" "No, no; but I can picture exactly what she has grown. As for Harold, I know he will be your image."

"Not at any rate by inches, it is to be hoped," he said, and laughed.

As the gentleman measured something like six feet, we may suppose this was not what the fond mother anticipated. "He will be tall, though," she persisted.

"No doubt; he will take after his mother."

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No, no!" cried the lady, who was not certainly remarkable for height.

"You could paint a portrait of our boy, doubtless, from anticipation, but whether correct or not is another thing." "Ah! it will not be long now, yet the hours seem days," she said.

"No, not long now," her husband repeated. Then he said, "What is the attraction, I wonder, yonder?"

A crowd had gathered at one end of the deck. A glass was being handed from one spectator to another.

Mr. and Mrs. Winwood drew near, carelessly wondering what it could be.

"As far as we can make out," replied some one, in answer to the former's question, "it is a boat with some

persons in it. But it is drifting, and they are either asleep, or drunk, or something."

"Something wrong anyway," said another. "Does the captain know? Is he going to send off?"

"Perhaps it is as well not," growled a selfish, old, rich Indian near. "Likely as not some case of infectious fever. I never knew any good come of such meddling."

"If you, sir, happened to be one of the unfortunate creatures in the boat, your opinion would be different, I doubt," said Mr. Winwood hotly.

"It is not as if they had signalled us, or seemed to need help," retorted the growler.

"They may be past asking for it, yet need assistance," 'maintained the other.

"There is no life stirring there, Mr. Winwood, sir,take my word for it," said the man, who had been looking through the glass, as he closed it with a bang; and so settled the question. And the little boat went drifting on the smooth sea.

"There is but one man that I can see, and a boy," said one of the lookers-on.

"A boy!" Mrs. Winwood pushed gently forward. "It is a boy!" she exclaimed. "Oh! Harold, can nothing be done?"

She looked up, expecting to see her husband, and found beside her the captain, whom Mr. Winwood had fetched. They were old friends.

"There is death there, my dear lady," he said; "the end of much suffering, I fear. Fever and starvation probably." "You will see?" she urged.

"They are lowering a boat," said Mr. Winwood hurriedly. "I am going with them."

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perception. You know, Dorothy, there may be a life to be saved, dear."

She nodded, and went away to her cabin, for she dreaded a painful sight, perhaps, if the poor sufferers were indeed past hope.

A short time passed, then Mrs. Winwood heard quick movements overhead, and voices speaking in tones of pity; some giving orders, some advising.

She put a question to the woman who waited on the ladies.

"It is the boat come back, ma'am. They have brought one of the poor fellows. They say he isn't dead."

Mrs. Winwood went out quickly and joined the group, in the midst of which knelt her husband, supporting on his knee the head of a lad, in whose pallid face, and blue, shrunken lips, death seemed plainly written. Some brandy had been inserted between his lips. One sailor was chafing his hands, another was drawing off the drenched shoes and stockings. As the shrivelled blue feet became visible a shudder ran round the group. More than one lady turned horrified away. But Mrs. Winwood ran swiftly to her cabin, and returned with a large piece of flannel, warm and soft.

"Wrap this round them," she cried, and, suiting the action to the word, she knelt down and rolled the boy's feet up, deftly chafing them with her own warm hands as she did so. At the same time another spoonful of brandy was poured down his throat. Suddenly a slight shiver ran through the frame of the lad. He opened his eyes, and while a wan, waking smile flitted over his face he said faintly, "Aunt-Charlotte-Dolly."

Mrs. Winwood sprang to her feet, and gazed at the boy, then at her husband, who in his turn was trembling, as he bent over the pallid face, and seemed hungrily listening for another word. But Harty was again insensible. Then he was carried into Mr. Winwood's own cabin, where the doctor came to him. He rendered all the aid possible, but he said that so much privation had

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