Her lips framed some words, but she could not utter them. She sank into a chair and gazed at him with blanched cheek, with quivering lips, with blurred eyes. Hush, baby, hush! you have never seen your father's face, and you do not understand now what one day will be told you--what George Marvel has had to drink brandy to give him courage to tell his faithful wife-- That the good ship, the "Merry Andrew," has foundered, and that every soul on board, Joshua and Minnie included, has gone down to the bottom of the sea. Not one saved--not one. CHAPTER XXVIII. ON BOARD THE "MERRY ANDREW." While the "Merry Andrew" was lying at Blackwell taking in cargo, Capt. Liddle, like the shrewd captain he was, had caused it to be notified that he would be happy to take a certain number of passengers to the New World at fifty pounds per head. It happened, as it usually happens in such like cases, that just at that time the exact number of persons that the ship could accommodate found either that Great Britain was too crowded for them to move freely in, or that at length the hour had arrived for them to make a fresh start in life. The captain of the "Merry Andrew" offered them the necessary opportunity. His ship would take them to a country where they would be able to turn without being elbowed. And there was no doubt that the start they contemplated would be a fresh one, inasmuch as in the new land their heads would be where their feet were now, and night was day and day night, and cherries grew with their stones outside, and many other wonders were commonplaces of every-day life. Accordingly, these enterprising souls, much to Capt. Liddle's satisfaction, paid their fifty pounds per head for four months of quiet misery on the sea. By that stroke of business Capt. Liddle served two purposes. He put money in his pocket as chief owner of the vessel, and he provided society for his wife, who was to accompany him on the voyage. Mrs. Liddle was a cheerful little body, who, although she was thirty years of age, had as much sentiment as a tender-hearted miss of eighteen. Her engagement with Capt. Liddle had been a long one. It was now more than twelve years since she first saw him and fell in love with him, as he did with her; but she happened to be blessed in a father who entertained not uncommon ideas as to the value of money, and as to the difference it made in a man, especially in a man who presumed to fall in love with his daughter. At that time Capt. Liddle was only second mate, and his matrimonial overtures were pooh-poohed by Capt. Prue, which was the name and title of his wife's father; Bessie Prue was hers. Capt. Prue (retired from the service) declared that he loved sailors and loved the sea, and that nothing would please him better than that his Bessie should marry a sailor. But then, that sailor must be a captain, he declared, and that captain must be absolute owner of the ship he commanded. Having passed the