“This information was a dreadful blow, but it did not make me a better man.  I tried to drown sorrow in intoxication, and almost obliterated the remembrance of home, excepting when, in the silence of night, it would come over me with irresistible power.

“When, after the lapse of three years, I once more approached my native land, I was much more unworthy of being recognized by my friends than in returning from my previous voyage.  Still I proceeded directly to Charlottesville, and stopped at the old mansion, which I had not seen for six long years.  Alas! it was tenanted by strangers.  A new tombstone was in the village grave-yard, and on one side of it the name of my father, and the other bore my own.  I asked the sexton, who was just opening the church for an evening lecture, when Richard Colman died.  He replied very readily,—­’O, about a year since.  The old gentleman heard of the loss of the vessel in which he sailed, and dropped away himself very suddenly.’

“I dared not inquire after Louisa, for I felt that she must look upon me as the destroyer of our father.  I hastened to Boston, and had determined on leaving the country for ever, when, by accident, I had tidings of my sweet sister.

“After the melancholy information I obtained at Charlottesville, I had become a temperance man, and took up my abode at the Sailor’s Home.  While there, a poor man, who had been ill for months, and finally was obliged to have his leg amputated, spoke often of the goodness of a young lady who had been often to see him, and whom he considered almost an angel.  My curiosity was excited, and I inquired of the excellent landlady the name of his friend, and was answered by a warm tribute of praise to my own sister.  I found that she was living in the family of an aunt, and was devoted to benevolent objects of all kinds, but chiefly interested in schemes for improving the temporal and spiritual condition of seamen.  O, my poor Louisa!  I knew, at that moment, that love for her miserable brother’s memory had dictated these exertions.

“Yet even then I did not seek to see her.  ‘I will leave her in peace,’ I said to myself, ’for she thinks I am dead, and it would be better for her if I really were.’  Still, now that she was alone, I could not bear to go so far from her again, and therefore made up my mind to enter the fishing-service, that I might not long be absent from the city.

“You may remember the day that Captain Peck brought the Bibles on board, which had been left for distribution by a lady of Boston.  That lady was my sister, and I trust that the bread which she thus cast upon the waters may indeed be returned to her before many days.  I have read that Bible daily, first, because it was her gift, and then because I found that it could give me more peace than I had ever known before in my whole life.  I shall go to my sister as soon as we return, and I feel that she will not cast me away.  I have so impaired my constitution, that only a few years may remain to me; but whatever time I am spared shall be spent in repaying as far as possible her unwearied affection.