“No, no, I don’t care! I want to know if you heard any thing from the Nereid. Why don’t you tell me?” an alarm gathering quickly in her voice as the first sickening suspicion came over her. “O Stephen,” she said, with a terrified cry that fairly frightened the man, “you have, and there is something wrong! O the Nereid—the Nereid is not lost! Say it is not lost!” She had caught the man’s arm in her wild excitement, and clung to him trembling like a leaf from head to foot. “Why, no, no!” he said, scared by the girl’s dreadful agitation; “the Nereid be all right, she be all right! I didn’t think of sich an idee comin’ to you, or I’d a said afore she be all right. Thar beant nothin’ the matter with her, nothin’, I was aboard o’ her myself—I’m afeard it’ll make you sick, Miss, a standin’ here in the drizzle like this, an’ with nothin’ to keep off the wet,”—trying to appear as if he had settled the trouble, but all the time keeping his face turned carefully from her. In the first instant of relief Hannah had let go of his arm and put her hands to her head without one word, so intense had been the strain; then, looking up suddenly, and drawing a quick breath, she faced round to him. “Stephen, is this the truth that you have told me? You are not deceiving me? Is there _nothing_ the matter?” “Lord, no, Miss, it beant no lie,” but the old sailor hesitated painfully while she looked at him, worked his hands nervously about his neck, put them irresolutely to his pockets once or twice, till unable to stand it any longer, he suddenly made an end to his indecision by jerking out a letter, at the same time muttering some half-coherent sentence about how it had been given to him for her on board the Nereid. “O, a letter!” she cried, joyfully, breaking the seal, while her face that had been so clouded lighted up radiantly. As she looked up for a second, with a smile upon her lips, the old sailor became more distressed in his manner than ever; and when she unfolded the paper he even put out his hand once or twice, as if he would have taken it back. Evidently he could not bear to see her read it then; he had not thought she would open it there. Troubled, he looked about, shuffling again with that uneasy movement on his feet. If only he could find some means to prevail upon her first to take it home, and driven to desperation he turned once more to her, and said in an appealing voice,— “I’m feared thar be a bad storm comin’ up, Miss; the sea it really do look ugly, and may hap you’d better run home first; thar beant much time to lose noways.” But alas! it was too late. Hannah, utterly oblivious to the old man’s entreaty, was already eagerly reading down the sheet. Suddenly the color fled from her face. She appeared dazed and confused. For an instant she held the paper in a convulsive grasp, staring at it with a stony glare. Then she uttered a long, shivering sound, and her fingers gradually relaxed their hold.