t to do Margaret justice, she was
faithful in thought and deed to the memory of O'Rourke--not the O'Rourke
who disappeared so strangely, but the O'Rourke who never existed.

"D' ye think, mum," she said one day to Mrs. Bilkins, as that lady was
adroitly sounding her on the ice question--"d' ye think I 'd condescind
to take up wid the likes o' him, or the baker either, afther sich a man
as Larry?"

The rectified and clarified O'Rourke was a permanent wonder to Mr.
Bilkins, who bore up under the bereavement with noticeable resignation.

"Peggy is right," said the old gentleman, who was superintending the
burning out of the kitchen flue. "She won't find another man like Larry
O'Rourke in a hurry."

"Thrue for ye, Mr. Bilkins," answered Margaret. "Maybe there's as good
fish in the say as iver was caught, but I don't be-lave it, all the
same."

As good fish in the sea! The words recalled to Margaret the nature of
her loss, and she went on with her work in silence.

*****

"What--what is it, Ezra?" cried Mrs. Bilkins, changing color, and rising
hastily from the breakfast table. Her first thought was of apoplexy.

There sat Mr. Bilkins, with his wig pushed back from his forehead, and
his eyes fixed vacantly on The Weekly Chronicle, which he held out at
arm's length before him.

"Good heavens, Ezra! what _is_ the matter?"

Mr. Bilkins turned his eyes upon her mechanically, as if he were a great
wax-doll, and somebody had pulled his wire.

"Can't you speak, Ezra?"

His lips opened, and moved inarticulately; then he pointed a rigid
finger, in the manner of a guide-board, at a paragraph in the paper,
which he held up for Mrs. Bilkins to read over his shoulder. When she
had read it she sunk back into her chair without a word, and the two sat
contemplating each other as if they had never met before in this world,
and were not overpleased at meeting.

The paragraph which produced this singular effect on the aged couple
occurred at the end of a column of telegraph despatches giving the
details of an unimportant engagement that had just taken place between
one of the blockading squadron and a Confederate cruiser. The engagement
itself does not concern us, but this item from the list of casualties on
the Union side has a direct bearing on our narrative:--

"_Larry O'Rourke, seaman, splinter wound in the leg.
Not serious_."

That splinter flew far. It glanced from Mr. O'Rourke's leg, went plumb
through the B