“It is very beautiful, and a great satisfaction to have seen it,” remarked Mr. Dinsmore at length, “but perhaps it would be as well for us to go on into the inside of the building now, reserving further examination of this golden doorway for some future time.”

With that he passed in, the others following.

Many of the exhibits there were more interesting to the older members of the party, especially the gentlemen, than to the ladies and younger people; locomotives and trains of cars such as were in use at different periods of time, showing the vast improvement in their construction since steam was first put to that use, models of vessels teaching the same lesson in regard to increased convenience and comfort of travel upon the water.

“Oh, there is the Victoria—­that grandest of battleships, sunk only the other day in collision with her sister ship, the Camperdown!” exclaimed Herbert.  “See what a crowd of men and women are gazing upon it!”

“Oh, yes,” said Rosie, “I remember reading a description of it in the papers.  One of England’s finest battleships, was she not?”

“Yes,” said Captain Raymond, drawing near and examining the model with interest; “she was a grand vessel, the pride of the British navy.  I should like to have seen her and am glad to have the opportunity to examine even a model.  Ah, what a sad accident it was! especially considering that it sent to the bottom of the sea her entire crew of nearly four hundred men and officers.”

“Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful!” said Grace in tearful tones.  “Especially because they had no time to think and prepare for death.”

“Yes, that is the saddest part of all,” sighed Grandma Elsie.

Our friends presently moved on, and all, from Grandpa Dinsmore down to little Ned, found many objects that interested them greatly.  But the most attractive thing of all to the young folks—­because of the story connected with it—­was Grace Darling’s boat.  It was the captain who pointed it out to his children.

“Who was she, papa? and what did they put her boat here for?” asked little Elsie.

“She was the daughter of William Darling, the lighthouse keeper on Longstone, one of the Fame Islands.”

“Where are they, papa?”

“In the North Sea, on the coast of Northumberland, the most northern county of England.  They form, a group of seventeen islets and rocks, some of them so small and low-lying as to be covered with water and not visible except when the tide is low; and the passage between them is very dangerous in rough weather.

“Two of the islands have each a lighthouse, and it was in one of those that Grace Darling and her father lived.

“In 1838 a vessel called the Forfarshire was wrecked among those islands.  William Darling, from his lighthouse, saw it lying broken on the rocks, and sixty-three persons on it in danger of drowning.  His daughter Grace, a girl of twenty-two, begged him to go and try to rescue them.  It was a very dangerous thing to attempt, but he did it, she going with him.