No news of Marie reached us after we received a letter by a brig called the 'Queen of the Night' which had spoken the 'Lady Emma' in the North Atlantic. She had sent us a sort of diary or journal: it was meant for her father and me: she wrote in spirits which, the entries showed, were gaining in brightness, and there was no doubt that her health had greatly improved. Some of her descriptions were very fine: she seemed to have thrown herself into the very life of the voyage and wrote of the sails, rigging, discipline and manœuvres of the vessel with the easy familiarity of an old sailor. We gathered that she was perfectly happy with Captain and Mrs. Burke, and of Mr. Owen she spoke with gratitude for his attention and sympathy. I was told, however, by one or two seagoing acquaintances not to wonder if we did not hear again from Marie until the ship arrived at her first port, Valparaiso. A vessel might be ninety days upon the ocean and yet not 'speak' another. A friend spoke of an Indiaman that, in the whole voyage from Bombay to the Thames--not allowing, of course, for the ships seen on touching at Capetown--had sighted nothing but the topmast canvas of a vessel whose hull was sunk out of sight below the horizon. I was living in rooms out of Bond Street. One morning in 1860, it was October 2, and Marie had then been absent from England six months, during which, after the arrival of the Liverpool brig, we had received no news whatever either of her or the 'Lady Emma.' I say, on October 2, whilst at breakfast, I picked up a morning newspaper and began to turn it about. After reading for some time my eye lighted upon a paragraph headed, 'Loss of the ship "Lady Emma."' I trembled and felt sick; I wanted courage to read the paragraph, though the paper was shuddering in my hands, and my eyes were upon the news, yet before reading I caught myself reasoning; it is another 'Lady Emma'--it cannot be Marie's ship--there may be ten or twenty 'Lady Emmas' afloat--and then I read. The paragraph--I have not preserved it--was to this effect: