“How do you do, Mrs. Garnet? Hasn’t this here bluff of wind come up sudden? ’Taint a-going to be anything but a wind, though, I believe. Come up to the house, honey. I’ll be down from here about the time you get up. I have just been looking out after that there vessel down the bay, as I think must be Hugh’s, seeing I’m expecting him. I spied that there craft about two hours ago. She was making slow headway, because the tide was strong agin her. Now she seems farther off than before. I shouldn’t wonder if this gust of wind, with the current, didn’t blow her out to sea agin. I hope it aint nothing but a gust, though, that’ll soon be over. The wind bluffs around as if it were a-going to change too; then it’ll be fair for her, and she’ll scud along fast enough before it. Come up to the house, honey! I’m coming down.” Alice reached the garden gate just as Miss Joe opened the house door and came out to meet her, her clothes all blown aslant and flapping about as if they would go over her head, but looking so hardy, sturdy, storm-proof, with her shining face rubicund with joy and welcome, Alice laughed out to see her. “Dear Miss Joe! you look chirping as a frosty morning! It enlivens one to see you! I have heard of people who, going out for wool, returned shorn. I have come to cheer you, and shall go home gladdened! You look so chirp!” “Oh, honey! I have enough to chirrup me. I’m heern from Hugh and his wife. You saw that sloop in at Hutton’s Harbor? Well, that there sloop, she came from the port of Baltimore, where she spoke the _Belle Agnes_, jest in from Liverpool, and brought a letter from Captain Hutton, saying as he should run down here soon as ever he unloaded his cargo and took in some freight for this here port. His letter says how Agnes is going for to stay long o’ me now. ’Deed, I reckon she’s had enough o’ sea-faring, a’ready!” said Miss Joe, as she straddled on toward the gate and opened it. Very soon the neat tea-table was set out and a repast, delicate and luxurious as any epicure could have desired, spread upon it. And Miss Joe arranged Alice in a comfortable seat at the side of the table near the fire, and as she poured out the fragrant tea she told all the story of the letter she had got from Hugh. How they had made such a prosperous voyage; how Hugh was going to stay home for three months; how Agnes was not going away again at all; and how she supposed Agnes was cured of her curiosity to see the ocean. And through all her talk Alice saw how much family affection was in that old frost-bitten heart of hers. CHAPTER XII. CHILD OF THE WRECK. The strife of fiends is on the battling clouds, The glare of hell is in the sulphurous lightnings. This is no earthly storm! _—Maturin’s Bertram._