dreadful lines of white froth through the blackness, two lines where the horns of breakers guard the harbor,——all night long beating off the lee with them, my life in my teeth, and chill, blank, shivering horror before me. My whole soul, my whole being, was fixed in that one spot, that little vessel driving on the rocks: it seemed as if a madness took possession of me, I reeled as I walked, I forefelt the shivering shock, I waited till she should strike. And then I thought I heard cries, and I ran out in the storm, and down upon the causey, but nothing met me but the hollow night and the roaring sea and the wind. I came back, and hurried up and down and wrung my hands in an agony. Pictures of summer nights flashed upon me and faded,——where out of deep blue vaults the stars hung like lamps, great and golden,——or where soft films just hazing heaven caught the rays till all above gleamed like gauze faintly powdered and spangled with silver,——or heavy with heat, slipping over silent waters, through scented airs, under purple skies. And then storms rolled in and rose before my eyes, distinct for a moment, and breaking,——such as I’d seen them from the Shoals in broad daylight, when tempestuous columns scooped themselves up from the green gulfs and shattered in foam on the shuddering rock,——ah! but that was day, and this was midnight and murk!——storms as I’d heard tell of them off Cape Race, when great steamers went down with but one cry, and the waters crowded them out of sight,——storms where, out of the wilderness of waves that far and wide wasted white around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, plunging, and swamping and crashing them into bottomless pits of destruction,——storms where waves toss and breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip from under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches cling to the crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, and the spray, and the sea lashes and beats them with great strokes and sucks them down to death; and right in the midst of it all there burst a gun,——one, another, and no more. “O Faith! Faith!” I cried again, and I ran and hid my head in the bed. How long did I stay so? An hour, or maybe two. Dan was still dead with sleep, but mother had no more closed an eye than I. There was no rain now, the wind had fallen, the dark had lifted; I looked out once more, and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the river from bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on Dan’s head again. I hadn’t a thought in my brain, and I fell to counting the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew clearer,——it got to being a universal gray; there’d been no sunrise, but it was day. Dan stirred,——he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide and looked about him. “I’ve had such a fright!” he said. “Georgie! is that you?”