“But to my story. We had been out three or four days, with favorable winds, and the sea and sky had revealed to us each day their varied aspect of beauty. A change had been threatening through the day, and as the night approached the dense settling of the vapors seemed to hem us in, and that strange utterance of the elements, where they call from point to point, holding as they do undivided empire over the world of waters, was sublime, not to say appalling. Mrs. Lacey was a timid woman, and though the thread of life seemed every moment ready to sunder, she still clung to it with a wild tenacity. Ellen thought not of herself, and I believe she would have shrunk from witnessing the fearful uproar about us, as the vessel plunged onward, bravely onward, yet helpless even in her strength. I was leaning against the companion-way, alive to an almost painful sense of sublimity, when the light form of Anne rushed into my arms, and clasping hers about me she buried her face in my bosom. “‘Oh! Charles, dear brother Charles, don’t send me back—let me stay with you and I shall fear nothing.’ “I gathered the sweet child to my bosom, and by a strange instinct approached the tafferel of the ship. I became aware of a sudden and terrible tumult—of a blackness even more dense than the thick clouds about us. Anne clung convulsively to my neck, and I instinctively put out my hands for support, for there was a fearful crash, a wild reeling beneath me, and I felt myself lifted from my feet and borne onward in the thick darkness. I was clinging to the chains of a larger ship that had crossed our track in that fearful storm, and had passed over her gallant souls, leaving all to perish, save us two so wondrously preserved. “When afflictions come singly upon ourselves we are overpowered with a sense of desolation; we tread the wine-press alone, and the burden is often too much for human endurance; but when the calamity is general the individual is merged in the many, and the selfishness of grief is forgotten. I scarcely wept for the gentle and beautiful Ellen. I was conscious of a dull aching weight of bereavement; but then I felt as an atom, a quivering, vital one indeed, but yet only as an atom in the great mass of human suffering. The ocean, too, pure and deep, seemed a fit resting place for the good and lovely. “When Anne awoke to consciousness, she called frantically for her mother and sister. Slowly and gently I revealed the sad reality. She stood with her little hands clasped, her wet hair streaming over her shoulders, and those deep earnest eyes gazing into mine with an intensity that pained me to the very heart. When all had become clear to her, she dropped her hands slowly and the tears gathered into her eyes; then, as by a new impulse, she drew herself to my bosom, and nestled there, like a dove, weary and desolate.