Morning was dawning over the vessel’s side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting fountains,—­morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still beating beneath his pillowed head.  “Oh, Louie,” he sighed, “speak to me—­say—­have I died?—­am I forgiven?—­is this heaven?”

“To me, dear—­oh to me!” answered she with the old radiant smile that used to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as to his earthly latitude and longitude.

“And it was all a dream, then?” he murmured.  “And I have not lost you?” He raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that he had hidden there so long ago.  “It was a fetter I could not break,” he whispered.  “I wrote her all about it long ago.  I wrote her father that he should have his vessel back again—­and I would take my freedom—­and not a dollar’s wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him.  But I should never have dared see you—­for—­oh, Louie—­how can you ever—­”

“Hush, hush, dear!” she breathed.  “What odds is all that now?  We have our life before us.”

“Only just help me live it, Louie.”

“God will help us,” she answered.  And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the veins:  the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the little Sabrina.

HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.

Old Sadler’s Resurrection: 

A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf.

“Talking about ghosts,” said the captain, “listen while I spin you a bit of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson.

“It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us.  He wore gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight bells to strike to rush below and call our relief.  He was an austere man, and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and skylarking.