There was even a third lover in prospect; for according to the gossip of the town, Mr. Donnehugh was frequently to be seen of a Sunday afternoon standing in the cemetery and regarding Mr. O'Rourke's headstone with unrestrained satisfaction. A year had passed away, and certain bits of color blossoming among Margaret's weeds indicated that the winter of her mourning was oyer. The ice-man and the baker were hating each other cordially, and Mrs. Bilkins was daily expecting it would be discovered before night that Margaret had married one or both of them. But to do Margaret justice, she was faithful in thought and deed to the memory of O'Rourke--not the O'Rourke who disappeared so strangely, but the O'Rourke who never existed. “D' ye think, mum,” she said one day to Mrs. Bilkins, as that lady was adroitly sounding her on the ice question--“d' ye think I 'd condescind to take up wid the likes o' him, or the baker either, afther sich a man as Larry?” The rectified and clarified O'Rourke was a permanent wonder to Mr. Bilkins, who bore up under the bereavement with noticeable resignation. “Peggy is right,” said the old gentleman, who was superintending the burning out of the kitchen flue. “She won't find another man like Larry O'Rourke in a hurry.” “Thrue for ye, Mr. Bilkins,” answered Margaret. “Maybe there's as good fish in the say as iver was caught, but I don't be-lave it, all the same.” As good fish in the sea! The words recalled to Margaret the nature of her loss, and she went on with her work in silence. ***** “What--what is it, Ezra?” cried Mrs. Bilkins, changing color, and rising hastily from the breakfast table. Her first thought was of apoplexy. There sat Mr. Bilkins, with his wig pushed back from his forehead, and his eyes fixed vacantly on The Weekly Chronicle, which he held out at arm's length before him. “Good heavens, Ezra! what _is_ the matter?” Mr. Bilkins turned his eyes upon her mechanically, as if he were a great wax-doll, and somebody had pulled his wire. “Can't you speak, Ezra?” His lips opened, and moved inarticulately; then he pointed a rigid finger, in the manner of a guide-board, at a paragraph in the paper, which he held up for Mrs. Bilkins to read over his shoulder. When she had read it she sunk back into her chair without a word, and the two sat contemplating each other as if they had never met before in this world, and were not overpleased at meeting. The paragraph which produced this singular effect on the aged couple occurred at the end of a column of telegraph despatches giving the details of an unimportant engagement that had just taken place between one of the blockading squadron and a Confederate cruiser. The engagement itself does not concern us, but this item from the list of casualties on the Union side has a direct bearing on our narrative:-- “_Larry O'Rourke, seaman, splinter wound in the leg. Not serious_.”