Hannah knew every vessel that sailed into port; and sometimes a boat, returning, had spoken the Nereid at sea, sometimes at long intervals a letter came. Then when for weeks, for months it might be, there was no word, no sign, the royal planet, moving in its eternal orbit, hung again in the sky, a star of promise. To Hannah, as she watched it night after night above the sea, it came as a messenger bearing glad tidings of great joy. So the time waned. The peaceful days passed by and fierce storms broke with a savage roar upon the coast. The green upon the hill-sides faded out, and the freezing spray encrusted the cliff with ice where the wintry sea threw up its bitter brine—and sometimes, farther off upon the shelving beach, it threw up more than brine, or stiffened weed. Broken spars, dreary fragments of wrecks drifted in, told of the wild desolation out upon the hoarse wilderness of beaten waves. But even those days too passed, and the Spring clothed the land again with emerald. More than a year had worn away since the Nereid had faded out of the horizon, and presently another Fall set in. For five months no word had come from the absent wanderers. Still Miriam made not the least complaint. Even when the storms lashed the sea, until it sent up a roar that made the young girl shiver, the widow evinced no anxiety. Had she not promised that she would wait patiently? She talked very little, and generally sat quietly by the window from morning till evening. But Hannah, saying nothing, had grown heavy-hearted with the long silence. It was November, a dull, dreary day in November. Heavy clouds stretched themselves in a somber, leaden sky, that near the water gathered dark and frowning. The gray sea, cold and hoarse, uttered eternally its hollow roar. But for this it seemed as if a mighty silence would have brooded over earth and ocean, a silence vast and dreadful as the grave. Dead white, the hungry surf crawled sullenly up the sand. Leagues away the fishing smacks all headed to shore, and the gulls were flying landward, when Hannah looking out, counted a new sail in the harbor. Any word to break this long heart-sick watch?