"Do not, Lillian, you are very ill! Have you forgotten what your father told you? He is where your babe has gone you know; but his last words were: 'My daughter; trust your mother always, and be guided by her superior wisdom.' I am older than you and know what is best for one in your present position; and if you will wait and be quiet all things will come out right at last."
"Yes, Mother. Let us go home where the odor of the orange-blossoms will bring me back to life, and Old Auntie can tell me all about it! Her little ones were all taken, and I never knew how her poor heart ached. I think I dreamed Mother, for I saw my pretty Lily carried away from me and I could not reach it although I stretched out my arms to possess her! O Mother! Mother! Is my child dead?" and the large eyes looked with a steady gaze into the blanched face of her only parent, who was chafing with a caressing motion the little white hand that was lying so lifelessly in her own. In vain did the pallid lips strive to answer but no word came to them.
"Is my child dead?" she asked again without removing her eyes.
"Dead, my daughter," at last fell from her icy lips, and another sin-stain was stamped on her already polluted soul that an ocean of tears could never wash away.
"Dead" she murmured, and the beautiful eyes again closed while the wretched mother sat by and trembled.
In the darkness that enveloped her how gladly would the soul have looked up for one little ray of light and comfort, but the pall of sin, the thick darkness of an abiding 'remorse' had settled down over every glimmering hope and not a gladsome beam of light could penetrate its dense folds. Poor soul! More terrible than the storm that had swept over the sea, when the words of the dark falsehood were registered where no mortal hand could blot them out, were the commotions of the tempest tossed soul as the mother watched on and the moments went wearily by!
"Dead!" again whispered the pale lips. "My Lily, my Pearl! Gone – all, all are gone! Take me home Mother – the ocean roars – the dark waves are rolling over your poor Lillian; – let us go home," and the beautiful head turned wearily upon its pillow and the wretched watcher moaned in her anguish; for she was alone!
CHAPTER II.
THE LITTLE MARINER ALONE UPON THE OCEAN
Six years! How short each succeeding round appears when one has almost reached the mountain's top-most peak of life's upward course and knows that soon his feet must be going rapidly down upon the other side, where his journey ends! But almost interminable their length to the weary little foot-sore traveler who wanders alone at its base ever looking upward to the green spots on the hillside with restless longings. Poor little Phebe! The first words that fell upon her unappreciative ear were mingled with the requiem notes over departed summer, and it had come for the sixth time since that eventful night with its soft breezes and sweet melodies – with its beautiful flowers and singing birds, and filled the heart of the lonely child full of the glorious sunshine. Now she could sit upon the beach and watch the white sails that floated away over the waters where the golden beams kept dancing and skipping about upon the waves, and listen to the deep, low murmurings of the sea that seemed to sing to her mysterious songs, until the angry passions within would grow calm and fairy forms would lead her away to that far-off land where in dreams she often wandered. Poor little Phebe! She was an unfortunate child "always in the way, never good for anything, doing nothing she ought but always the very thing she should not." Never in favor, at least with her foster-mother, who almost daily declared "that the paltry hundred and fifty dollars didn't begin to pay for the trouble and expense of the disagreeable child," and yet it would have been no very easy task to compute the cost of the scanty meal which twice each day fell to the little outcast child to whom the thriving, ambitious Mrs. Blunt gave a shelter. Sure it was that a goodly sum was stored away in the old oak chest which would never have been there had the "troublesome child" not found her way into the fisherman's cottage.
True, there was nothing that was winning about the diminutive figure with the sunburnt face. An unusual growth of thick dark-brown hair was kept conveniently "cropped," in defiance of science or taste, close to her well-rounded head, and a pair of large hazel eyes seemed to be always penetrating the secret depths of hearts where no welcome greeted them. Her dress too did not set off her little dumpy figure to the best advantage, although it was often of the finest material, being generally the cast-off garments of the "misses" of the Cliff House, which were duly sent every season by a servant who was commanded to "inquire after the little girl" and always returned with a favorable report. These the child wore regardless of size or fitness, and as she wandered alone upon the beach with her sad face and thoughtful eyes turned upward gazing into the deep blue sky or away in the dreamy distance one might have been pardoned for calling the queer little figure gnome, or witch, as the fancy struck him.
"Where under the sun has that little imp gone to now!" exclaimed Mrs. Blunt entering the room one day where her daughter Maria, a pale, sickly girl of sixteen, was sitting, as she deposited her basket of vegetables upon the bare floor in no very amiable mood.
"I do declare! She's the most provoking creature I ever saw! I told her to have all the knives scoured before I came in from the garden and positively there has only two of them been touched and they are lying out there in the sun growing blacker than ever and she is nowhere to be seen! I don't know what to do with her! It don't do a bit of good to whip her – not a bit – and I don't know as anything but killing would effect her at all!" She smiled feebly as this last observation fell from her lips, while the daughter laughed outright.
"No it don't!" said the girl, quickly seeing that the fury of the storm had for the time passed and the mother was about to lift the basket and pass into the kitchen; "it don't do a bit of good to whip her! It only makes her mad and more willful! Suppose we try coaxing for a time just to see how it will work. I think there is good in her but cross words will never bring it out!"
"There is one thing about it! If we don't hear from that woman before a great while she may go and find some one to coax her besides me; I don't like her well enough to begin!"
"I presume she has not come back from Europe yet," said the daughter musingly; then she spoke more audibly. "I wouldn't send her off yet, Mother; remember we have almost enough for Father to buy a fishing smack of his own, then we shall be quite rich," and the blue eyes of the pale face lighted up with the anticipation.
"Humph! Well she has got to do better than she has if she wants to stay here!" and with this satisfactory conclusion she disappeared with her basket through the narrow door into the kitchen. Maria quietly laid aside her knitting and went out where upon a wooden bench standing on one side of the humble cottage lay the neglected knives which she in a very short time polished and put away in the narrow wicker basket on the dresser, then taking her neatly starched sun bonnet from its nail in the entry and placing it on her head passed out through the garden down a narrow footpath across the common to the sea shore. She was in quest of the truant Phebe, and well did she know where to find her. Walking along a few rods by the sandy beach she came suddenly to the foot of a steep ascent whose side facing the sea was almost entirely composed of precipitous rocks unevenly thrown together, while here and there a stunted pine or a yellow clump of moss struggled for existence. Here too, half way down the rugged descent Phebe lay concealed in her cozy retreat, sheltered from the summer sun by the rocks above her, with an uninterrupted view of the boundless ocean spread out to her delighted gaze. In a few moments Maria was sitting by her side. She did not seem at all surprised at the presence of her visitor, but raising herself remarked quietly: "Maria how can those birds stand on the water out there? I can't do it. I wish I could lie down on that wave that keeps rocking – rocking and singing – why can't I Maria? Hark! Do they talk to you – the waves? Did they ever say 'come here? come here?' They do to me."
"You are a queer child!" replied Maria impatiently, forgetting for the time the grand purpose of her visit. "But why don't you try to be a good girl and do as