“… It is the noble brow Of Fingall; the kindly look of his eyes. It is not now a shadow which deludes My sight.—These are his hands.—I feel their warm Pressure.” “Has the bright tear of joy no welcome told?” Julia, supported and advised by Frances, made great exertions to seem to partake, with a natural share of interest, in the general joy, without betraying her own peculiar emotions. In the evening, for the sake of appearances, she ventured to leave her room. She had just taken her place at the tea-table, when a hasty step was heard without. The door flew open, and Edmund entered! Mrs. Montgomery threw over her footstool and little table, and dropped her spectacles, in hastening to meet him. She clasped him to her heart and wept! Frances, without one thought of reserve, flew into his arms, and clung round his neck, as she was wont to do when a child, exclaiming, “Dear, dear Edmund, you are safe!” And Julia trembled and turned pale, as, emboldened by the reception her sister had given him, yet colouring excessively, he approached and folded her also for one moment to his breast; for by an effort she had risen, and stood upright before her chair, though literally unable to move from it. She sunk on her seat again, but kindly smiled as she looked up through tears of joy, and Edmund still retaining her hand, she returned the pressure of his, more than once, as a sort of apology, each time, for her utter failure in an attempt to speak. “And were you not even wounded, my dear boy?” said Mrs. Montgomery. “Nothing more than slight contusions, ma’am,” he replied; “the ball struck one fluke of the anchor, and the shock which I experienced, as I stood on the other, was more like electricity than any thing else.” “But tell me how you came to stand on the anchor?” asked Mrs. Montgomery, “I could not comprehend one half of what the papers said about it.” “I thought the anchor was always in the bottom of the sea!” said Frances. “Why,” replied Edmund, to Mrs. Montgomery, after answering Frances’ interruption with an amused smile, “the enemy had ceased firing, so that I thought it probable they were about to strike; and, in that case, you know, it would not have been desirable to have fired into them again, as we might have sacrificed lives unnecessarily, so that I merely ran forward to the forecastle, and jumped from thence on the fluke of the anchor, which was made fast to the bows, and where I stood waiting for the dispersion of the smoke of our own guns, to ascertain the point, of whether the last of the enemy had hauled down her colours or not.”