It is certain that our whole town felt and acknowledged the benefit of Mrs. Bertrand’s residence among us; and, strange as it may appear, I do not remember that any envious tongues were employed to diminish the credit of her efforts, or to lessen her power of usefulness. It was a beautiful homage to female excellence which our neighborhood paid to the virtues of mother and daughter, and I have often thought that some credit was due to us all for thus appreciating what was so truly beautiful, without allowing the disparity between us and them to excite envy. Perhaps, however, it was the vast difference between us that served to keep down jealousy. During a violent gale that followed the vernal equinox, a vessel coming, I think, from Havana, and bound for Boston, was wrecked on one of the outer capes of the bay. She strode at some distance from the shore; and went to pieces in the gale. It was believed that all on board had perished as several dead bodies washed ashore. One person, however, was taken up lashed to a spar; he exhibited some evidence of remaining vitality, and was put into a vessel to be conveyed to Plymouth, but the tide and wind favored the landing at this end of the bay, and he was conveyed to a solitary house on the point of land at the mouth of the river. There medical men ascertained that an arm was broken, and some injury sustained in one of the sufferer’s legs. Surgical aid was given, and careful nursing was required. This was most difficult to procure—money was to be had, for the pockets of the sufferer were filled with gold coin, and subsequently portions of the ceiling of the ship’s cabin which washed ashore, were found to be studded with guineas, driven into the boards that they might drift ashore. As the suffering man was found to have similar coin with him, it was supposed that these waifs were his also. Mrs. Bertrand was at the time quite too unwell to visit the Nook, as the place was called, where the sick man lay—so Amelia went with such appliances for the sick chamber as her mother could send, and afterward she obtained permission of her mother to remain and assist one of the other persons of the village to take care of the sick man, that the family whose rooms he occupied, might not be drawn from their necessary labor. The shipwrecked person seemed to be about forty years of age; it was difficult to judge of his person, but his face and head were attractive. He was rather patient than resigned; and if he forbore to complain of his suffering, it was evident that the pride of a man habitually trusting to himself, rather than the Christian submitting to Providence, restrained his tongue.