“_Lost_”—there was a world of meaning in that word to Hugh and though it was but a child he lost, yet in the quiet night, when all else around Spring Bank was locked in sleep, he often lay thinking of her and of what he might perhaps have been had she been spared to him. He had talked with her scarcely an hour in all, but even in that time she had made upon him an impression which could never be effaced. He was thinking of her now, and as he thought, visions of a sweet, young face, shadowed with curls of golden hair, came up before his mind, and he saw again the look of surprise and pain which shone in the soft, blue eyes and illuminated every feature when in answer to some remark of hers he gave vent to the half infidel principles he had learned from his uncle. Her creed was different from his, and she explained it to him so earnestly, that he said to her at last he did but jest to hear what she would say, and though she seemed satisfied he felt there was a shadow between them which was not swept away, even after he promised to read the Bible she timidly offered him and which he had accepted wondering at her interest in one whose _name_ she did not even know. _Hers_ was written on the fly-leaf of the little book which he had yet hidden away where no curious eye could find it, while carefully folded between its leaves was a curl of golden hair. That tress and the Bible which enclosed it had made Hugh Worthington a better man. He did not often read the Bible, it is true, and his acquaintances were frequently startled with opinions which had so pained the little girl on board the St. Helena, but this was merely on the surface, for far below the rough exterior there was a world of goodness, a mine of gems kept bright by memories of the angel child who flitted for so brief a span across his pathway and then was lost forever. He had tried so hard to save her—had clasped her so fondly to his bosom when with extended arms she came to him for aid. He could save her, he said—he could swim to the shore with perfect ease; and so without a moment’s hesitation she had leaped with him into the surging waves, and that was about the last he could remember, save that he clutched frantically at the long, golden hair streaming above the water, retaining in his grasp the lock which no one at Spring Bank had ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh’s life was a secret with himself. No one save his uncle had witnessed his emotions when told that she was dead; no one else had seen his bitter tears or heard the vehement exclamation, “You’ve tried to teach me there was no hereafter, no Heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am glad there is, for she is safe forever.”