"But that I sprang aside from its path, Miss Ella, it would have gone right over me," she reiterated, her teeth chattering; "it made as if it wanted to. Straight, straight on it came, turning neither to the right nor the left. Oh, it was an awful sight!" In spite of herself, Ella could not repress a shudder. The story of the apparition of the black coach and its headless horses was not unknown to her. "And now, Miss Ella, there'll be a death in the house before long," shivered the woman. "It is a safe and sure warning of it--and oh, which of us is it to be?" To attempt to combat this, would have been a hopeless task: Dorothy had believed in it as long as she had believed in anything. Miss Winter contented herself with soothing her in the best way she could, and, when the old woman had in some measure recovered from her fright, in obtaining a promise from her not to speak to anyone of what she had seen that night. But that was probably too much to expect of Dorothy. CHAPTER IX. ON BOARD THE "SEAMEW." With September the lovely weather suddenly broke up, and a few days later there was a great storm along the eastern seaboard. One morning news came to Heron Dyke that during the night a brig of some three hundred tons burden, the _Seamew_, bound from Dantzic to London, had struck on the Creffel Bank, and lay there a helpless wreck. Two of the crew had been washed overboard; the rest, including the master, were rescued by the Easterby lifeboat. The Creffel Bank was known as one of the most dangerous spots on that part of the coast, and many a gallant craft had gone to pieces on its shifting and treacherous shoals. Miss Winter at once sent Hubert Stone into the village with instructions to aid the shipwrecked men in whatever way might seem best. All of them, except the captain, expressed a desire to be forwarded to London, and were accordingly packed off by rail, their fares being paid by Hubert. As the brig did not at once break up, when the storm abated several boats went out to her, and in the course of a couple of days succeeded in landing that portion of her cargo which remained unspoiled, and most of her loose fittings; but the little _Seamew_ herself was so deeply imbedded in the sand that it was impossible to get her off, and the next gale would doubtless break her up entirely. One sunny afternoon, Ella took her sketchbook to the sands, and was dutifully accompanied by Mrs. Toynbee with a novel. But Ella was not long in discovering that she was in no mood for sketching, that she was rather in a mood which inclined to day-dreaming, and to vague golden visions of some far-off future. Could it be that the recent visit of Edward Conroy had anything to do with these idle fancies?