beckoning him to cross.  But whenever he made the attempt the waves would close over his head, and he awoke with a sense of suffocation and gasping for breath.  At another time the scene of the drowning fisherman would be repeated, but with innumerable variations.  Sometimes, in some way or other, Holden would be mixed up with it, sometimes Faith, and sometimes, most horrible of all, he himself would be desperately struggling to hold Sill under water, till finally the yielding body sunk, sunk into depths no eye could fathom.  But never till the face turned and transfixed him with the despairing glare of those dreadful eyes.

But we are anticipating and rather describing the condition into which his mind gradually fell, than its state immediately after his interview with the Solitary.  It took some time longer before the idea that by an inexorable decree he was doomed to entail destruction on all connected with him, became fixed.  For awhile it floated uncertainly and impalpably before him, and only slowly, like an approaching spectre, took upon itself shape and presence.  A conversation between himself and his daughter on the second day after the accident, and his conduct immediately thereafter, may give us some apprehension of the current of his thoughts and feelings then.

“My dearest father,” said Faith, throwing her arms around his neck, and repeating what she had said more than once before, “oh, how thankful ought I to be for the saving of your precious life!”

“We are often thankful in our ignorance,” said her father, “for the greatest misfortunes.”

“Do you call it a misfortune to me,” she cried, “that I am not left alone in the world?  Oh, father, what should I do without you?” And in spite of her exertions to suppress them, the tears burst from her eyes.

“Come to me, my child,” said Armstrong, and he took the weeping girl into his arms, and leaned her head gently upon his bosom.  “Compose yourself.  Believe me, there are trials harder to be borne than the loss of parents.”

“None, none to me,” sobbed Faith.  “If it were right I would pray that I might die the same moment with you.”

“It is well for one like me to think often of death,” said her father, “nor should the young forget they are mortal.  But many happy days, I trust, are reserved for my darling.”

“Happy, if you are to share them with me, father.  But why do I weep,” she said, raising up her head and smiling through her tears, “at thinking of the possibility of a misfortune to myself, when my heart is swelling with thankfulness for your preservation?” She arose from her father’s lap, drew a chair to his side, and as her custom was, took one of his hands in both of hers.

“Such are the dispensations of Providence,” said Armstrong.  “The old man, with white hair and bent body, creeps to his grave, while the infant that has just learned to smile in its mother’s face, is hurried from her arms.  Why was it that Sill, so strong, so happy, so young, with a wife and children dependant on him for support, should be taken and I left?”