Presently Holdsworth, scarcely conscious of what he was about, left the window and approached the bookcase. He pulled out a volume, which proved to be an old copy of Gulliver’s Travels, “adorn’d with sculptures;” and his eye lighting on that passage in which Gulliver closes his account of his second voyage,[2] his thoughts trooped off to his old sea-faring life, the book closed upon his fingers, and he sank in deep meditation. [2] “In a little time I and my family and friends came to a right understanding: but my wife protested ‘I should never go to sea any more;’ although my evil destiny so ordered, that she had not the power to hinder me.” The restoration of his memory was comparatively so recent, that he had found no leisure to recall those frightful experiences of his which could not recur without overwhelming him with an unspeakable horror of the sea. He now understood that it should have been his duty to call upon the owners of the “Meteor,” and acquaint them with the circumstances of the wreck of their vessel, and the deaths of the persons who were in his boat, all whom he clearly remembered. There were friends, doubtless, both in England and America, who could wish to receive tidings of the fate of these people, though the long interval of five years should tell as plain a story as Holdsworth could relate. He knew not whether the inmates of the other boats had been saved, and he would have given much to ascertain this; but he understood that any communication he made to the shipowners would be almost sure to appear in print, by which his wife would learn that he was alive. “No! let the world think me dead!” he exclaimed bitterly. He had only to live for the past now--for that memory which had betrayed him and ruined his life. His future was bare and barren, and there was nothing in all the world that could kindle one ray of comfort in his hopeless heart but the bleak privilege of dwelling near his wife and child. He restored the book to its place and returned to the window. In the roadway, a few yards to the right, a little girl was standing, holding a doll. She was a very little creature, with bright yellow hair down her back, and she held the doll in motherly fashion on her arm, and caressed it with her hand. Her back was towards Holdsworth, whose eyes were rooted upon her. She turned presently and looked down the road, and Holdsworth saw a little face upon which God had graven a sign that made the poor father clutch at the wall to steady himself. For there was his own face in miniature--the face that Dolly had loved before the sufferings of the mind, and the anguish of hunger and thirst, had twisted from it all resemblance it had ever borne to what was manly and beautiful in the human countenance.