28.--Rained all morning and miserably cold. The light breeze we had died away and we rolled helplessly until after dinner, when the wind came up from the south-east, which sent us bowling on our course. A huge staysail, that had been bent by the sailors two days ago between the main and foremast, was hoisted for the first time, and added perceptibly to the ship’s speed. Sickness increases and the body of a boy of 5 years of age was dropped into the ocean in the forenoon. The frequency of deaths has made the passengers callous, and, especially those of children, call out little comment. When men and women have sounded the deepest depth of wretchedness, as they have done, they seem to lose both hope and fear. Uncle’s wife is no better; so far as I can judge she is sinking. She might rally had we suitable nourishment to give her, but we have nothing. She has not even fresh air, but with every breath inhales the stench of a pestilence. Uncle, unable to do anything else for her, sits at the head of the berth, her hand clasped in his. We had a wonderful sunset. The change of wind brought warmth and dappled the sky with fleecy clouds. The forecastle being deserted Aileen went with me and we sat where, looking down, we could see the cutwater flashing the waves into foam, or, looking up, see the cloud of canvas and tracery of rope and block crimsoning in the waning sunlight. The sun was setting so directly ahead of us that it might be supposed the man at the wheel was steering for it. The glittering, burnished pathway it threw across the ocean, our ship sailed up. “Sure,” whispered Aileen, “it is the road to the land of promise and the sun himself welcomes us as we pursue it.” “Heaven grant it may be so, but for some on board the land of promise will never be.” “Don’t be looking at the dark side, Gerald. See yonder clouds, their downy edges touched with pink. Let us fancy them the wings of the angels who are beckoning us to homes of plenty and content beyond that western wave, and cheer up.” As I looked into her face, bright with enthusiasm, I felt if angels beckoned I had also one at my side to encourage me. We gazed in silence at the glowing scene, marked the sun’s disappearance, and the deepening colors in cloud and water. Turning our gaze to the ship we could trace the sun’s departing rays as they creeped up the tall masts. “Who would think,” I said, “to look upon this most beautiful of all man’s creations, a ship in full sail radiant in the sun’s richest tints, that in her hold she is bearing an unspeakable mass of misery and woe? How dark within; how bright without. How deceiving are appearances!” “Nay, Gerald, rather look at it this way: How God in his goodness beautifies what man mars. Nothing so loathsome the sun will not bathe in the fullness of his brightness and glory.”