bethought her of the unreasonableness of encouraging feelings like those which were now uppermost in the deacon’s breast.  Even minister Whittle had a curiosity to know how much was added to the sum-total of Deacon Pratt’s assets, by the return of a craft that had so long been set down among the missing.  When all eyes, therefore, were turned in curiosity on the handsome face of the fine manly youth who now stood at the bed-side of the deacon, including those of brother and sister, of nephews and nieces, of cousins and friends, those of this servant of the most high God was of the number, and not the least expressive of solicitude and expectation.  As soon as the deacon had caught a little breath, and had swallowed a restorative that the hired nurse had handed to him, his eager thoughts reverted to the one engrossing theme of his whole life.

“These are all friends, Gar’ner,” he said; “come to visit me in a little sickness that I’ve been somewhat subject to, of late, and who will all be glad to hear of our good fortune.  So you’ve brought the schooner back, a’ter all, Gar’ner, and will disapp’int the Sag Harbour ship-owners, who have been all along foretelling that we should never see her ag’in:—­brought her back—­ha!  Gar’ner?”

“Only in part, Deacon Pratt.  We have had good luck and bad luck since we left you, and have only brought home the best part of the craft.”

“The best part—­” said the deacon, gulping his words, in a way that compelled him to pause; “The best part!  What, in the name of property, has become of the rest?”

“The rest was burned, sir, to keep us from freezing to death,” Roswell then gave a brief but very clear and intelligible account of what had happened, and of the manner in which he had caused the hulk of the deacon’s Sea Lion to be raised upon by the materials furnished by the Sea Lion of the Vineyard.  The narrative brought Mary Pratt back to the side of the bed, and caused her calm eyes to become riveted intently on the speaker’s face.  As for the deacon, he might have said, with Shakspeare’s Wolsey,

“Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not, in mine age, Have left me naked to mine enemies.”

His fall was not that of a loss of power, it is true, but it was that of a still more ignoble passion, covetousness.  As Roswell proceeded, his mind represented one source of wealth after another released from his clutch, until it was with a tremulous voice, and a countenance from which all traces of animation had fled, that he ventured again to speak.

“Then I may look upon my ventur’ as worse than nothing?” he said.  “The insurers will raise a question about paying for a craft that has been rebuilt in this way, and the Vineyard folks will be sartain to put in a claim of salvage, both on account of two of their hands helping you with the work, and on account of the materials—­and we with no cargo, as an offset to it all!”