“Nevertheless,” persisted Agnes, “I feel under very great obligations to you all.  But I will tell you what made me look a little melancholy when you came in.  Your father informed me, this morning, that there would be no possibility of my communicating with my home until spring, and thus my relatives and friends, not having any intelligence of me, for so long a time, will certainly believe that I have found a watery grave.”

“But when you return home, what a delightful surprise they will get; why, it would be worth enduring months of pain for,” said Ellen, who seemed to have the happy faculty of always looking at the bright side.

“Very true, Ellen, but”—­and an involuntary sigh followed the sentence—­“you know not, and I trust will never know, from experience, that ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’”

“I know something about that, too, Miss Agnes, though maybe you think me too young; but, indeed, there was once a weary while, when I watched the sea day after day, that is, when the scalding tears would let me see it, and shuddered to hear the fierce winds moaning round our dwelling, as though they had a human heart, and sighed and raved for some lost love.  Oh, how I remember the day, when that long-looked for vessel came back again, for I had got up more down-hearted than ever, and I thought it no use hoping and waiting, for I shall never see it again,—­and then the salt sea was not salter than the tears I shed, as I sat down on a rock by the shore, and thought of the stalwart form that would never meet my eye again, and of the kind voice that should never sound in my ears,—­and as I looked on the sea, its bright waves rippling and smiling beneath my feet, it seemed to laugh and mock me cruelly, and I almost wished myself,—­I know it was very wicked, Miss Agnes,—­far, far beneath it, where I should forget my troubles, and my heart cease its aching.  And then I laid my head on the rock, and covered my face with my hands, and cried as though I should never cease, until I felt something touch my face, and a voice that I knew too well said, ’Ellen, Ellen, what art thou breaking thy heart for in this manner?’—­and I looked up, and saw two eyes, that, a moment before, I thought death had closed, shining brightly on me, and—­but you have seen him yourself, Miss Agnes, and can easy guess how happy I was.  Oh, it made up for all my weary days, and wretched, sleepless nights.”

Agnes had listened with much interest to the simple narrative, and while her eyes filled with tears, she murmured, almost unconsciously,

     “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

We would not like to vouch for it, but, perhaps, while Ellen had been speaking, with the remembrance of her relatives, another image had arisen in her mind, and she thought, “And he, too, he will hear of what they will deem my terrible fate.”

There was pleasure, mingled with pain, as her heart suggested, that eyes, albeit unused to weep, might even now be shedding a tear over her untimely doom; for Arthur did not, could not, conceal the deep interest he felt in her welfare; and as she called to mind his kindness, his sympathy, when all the world seemed dark to her, she felt her heart thrill with strange emotion, and she asked herself, again and again, “Shall I ever be so happy as to see him once more?”