Vainly she endeavored to dissuade her from going to the wharf, but Miriam, radiant as a child in her joy, nervous in her pitiful haste, paid no heed to her remonstrances, that it was cold, that it was too far, that she would go in her place, until Hannah, driven to desperation, told her mother again of the dreadful disaster, and how poor Tom could not be there to meet her. Then the widow stayed her trembling hands for a moment in their flurried effort to tie her bonnet, and looked at Hannah, looked at her long and steadily, as she had done before, with the same strange gaze in her eyes. It always seemed as if she was dimly conscious, for the instant, that something was wrong, but even as the shadow flitted over her face, it was gone. “Come,” she said, her countenance all brilliant with eager excitement, “hurry, we must not be late. I feel young and strong, and it will be such a glad surprise for him!” Hannah, powerless to keep Miriam back, gave up the endeavor, and went on, with a mortal agony in her heart, beside the frail woman who, in all faith, was going to welcome home her son—her son out upon the silent sea of eternity, where even a mother’s voice could never reach. No wonder the girl’s grief made her dumb. Was there no escape? She heard the waters running in, it seemed to her for a thousand leagues, sounding their dreadful dirge. At that moment gladly would she have lain down forever in the same boundless grave with father and brother, where the waves, slow and sad, were playing for them this requiem on every shore of every land. But Miriam, in the extremity of her haste, never stopping, went on steadily over the wet ground, bending, sometimes almost staggering, before the raw March wind that swept in fierce gusts from the still frozen north. A sudden hush fell upon all the people at the wharf as they came down. With her gray hair blown about in strands, her eyes fever-bright, and her breath coming quick and short, paying no heed to any one, the widow Aber glided silently among them, like an apparition. Unconscious of every thing but the ship, even then in the mouth of the harbor, she stood, her face so thin and worn, all quivering with excitement, and her pale lips moving constantly with some inarticulate sound. Once or twice she stretched out her trembling hands toward the vessel, then, gathering her shawl, held them tight against her breast, as if she would keep down the throbbing of her heart. Frail and shadowy, she seemed hardly human, as she waited, with her garments fluttering in the bitter wind, with her very soul reaching, struggling, looking out eagerly in her gray eyes.