while strength lasted.  One boat was left on the shore of King William’s Land, and was found by Captain McClintock, with two skeletons; also boats and stores of various kinds, five watches, two double-barreled guns, loaded, a few religious books, a copy of the “Vicar of Wakefield,” twenty-six silver spoons and forks, and many other articles.  The Esquimaux related that the men dragging the boat “dropped as they walked.”  The other boat was crushed in the ice.  No trace, but a floating spar or two, and driftwood embedded in ice, was ever found of the Erebus or Terror.

Truly the “Franklin relics,” brought from amid the regions of snow and ice, are a possession of which those know the value who know how great a thing it is to walk on in the path of duty, with brave defiance of peril, and, above all, a steadfast dependence upon God.

Mr. William L. Bird, a young man of great promise, deaf from his seventh year, who died in Hartford, Conn., in 1879, left among his papers a little poem which well expresses the mood of Lady Franklin in her lonely years: 

    THE OCEAN.

        I stand alone
        On wave-washed stone
    To fathom thine immensity,
        With merry glance
        Thy wide expanse
    Smiles, O! so brightly upon me. 
    Art thou my friend, blue, sparkling sea?

        With your cool breeze
        My brow you ease,
    And brush the pain and care away. 
        Your waves, the while,
        With sunny smile,
    Around my feet in snowy spray
    Of fleecy lightness dance and play.

        So light of heart,
        So void of art,
    Your waves’ low laugh is mocking me. 
        I hear their voice—­
        “Come, play, rejoice;
    Come, be as happy as are we;
    Why should you not thus happy be?”

        Alas!  I know
        That, deep below,
    And tangled up in sea-weeds, lies,
        Where light dares not
        Disturb the spot,
    He who alone can cheer my eyes. 
    O sea! why wear this sparkling guise!

* * * * *

XIII.

ELIZABETH ESTAUGH.

(BORN 1682—­DIED 1762.)

A QUAKER COURTSHIP, IN WHICH SHE WAS THE PRINCIPAL ACTOR.

The story of Elizabeth Haddon is as charming as any pastoral poem that was ever written.  She was the oldest daughter of John Haddon, a well-educated and wealthy Quaker of London.  She had two sisters, both of whom, with herself, received the best education of that day.  Elizabeth possessed uncommon strength of mind, earnestness, energy, and originality of character, and a heart overflowing with the kindest and warmest feelings.  The following points in her life, as far as necessary for the setting, of the main picture, are drawn chiefly from the beautiful narrative by Lydia Maria Child, and almost in her own words.