skiff was gently impelled nearer to the object of their alarm. There was nothing loathsome about those poor mortal remains; only a few whitened bones, huddled within the folds of a seaman’s dress, and a fleshless hand spread out upon the chilly stone. He had escaped from drowning by the help of a little boat, whose broken bits, cast up beyond the reach of the sea, by some unusually high tide and storm, spoke to so much of the sad tale. On that hard bed of shelving rock the unfortunate man had met a more dreadful death than that of the engulphing wave. Unheard, unsuccoured, he had died of starvation. “What had we better do, mother?” said one of the boys, after a long silence, which had been employed by the young people in gazing upon the miserable spectacle of man’s helpless humanity, and in gathering up the courage which had so suddenly deserted them. Doya did not reply, and the pallor and anguish which had fallen so suddenly upon her features gave much alarm to her children. “Are you ill, dear mother? What is it?” they queried. When at last she spoke, her voice trembled, and her figure shook with the force of some inward trouble, which she evidently tried to conceal and overcome. Having summoned all her strength of mind, she said, hurriedly—“No one must come here, no one must know of this but you and I. Children, children, the guardian spirit, who never forsakes its charge, has guided us here.” By the mother’s direction, Rassmie and Hermann landed on the little strip of sand which carpeted the further end of the cave. There they gathered together some bits of wood belonging to the broken boat, and, clambering up the rude walls, they deposited the spars on a ledge close to that on which the sailor lay. Then Doya got out of the boat, telling her children to return to the mouth of the cavern, and linger there out of sight until she called them. They were reluctant to leave her alone in such a place, and with such a task as they rightly guessed she had set herself to do, but obedience was the first lesson these young people had learned, and reverence for their mother and her wishes was the consequence of her wise training. The oars were dipped into the quiet water, and in a few moments Doya was alone with _it_. Ah! who but a wife would have knelt so tenderly by that ghastly object, and wrapped it in the folds of her cloak? who else would have laid her living lips on the bleached and bony palm, and have recognized in those un-sepulchred bones something she had once loved? Who but a wife, whose young affections had been altogether _his_, would have forgotten the sin and sorrow, the neglect and unkindness of years, and have thus cared for the poor remains of a wicked man?