in all besides, she had no
sympathy, as they sat together in the pleasant sunshine, with Clara's
gloomy despair of the future. She, who could still hope, had nothing to
say to the sad companion who had done with hope. So the quiet minutes
succeeded each other, and the two friends sat side by side in silence.

An hour passed, and the gate-bell of the villa rang.

They both started--they both knew the ring. It was the hour when
the postman brought their newspapers from London. In past days, what
hundreds on hundreds of times they had torn off the cover which inclosed
the newspaper, and looked at the same column with the same weary
mingling of hope and despair! There to-day--as it was yesterday; as it
would be, if they lived, to-morrow--there was the servant with Lucy's
newspaper and Clara's newspaper in his hand!

Would both of them do again to-day what both had done so often in the
days that were gone?

No! Mrs. Crayford removed the cover from her newspaper as usual. Clara
laid _her_ newspaper aside, unopened, on the garden seat.

In silence, Mrs. Crayford looked, where she always looked, at the column
devoted to the Latest Intelligence from foreign parts. The instant her
eye fell on the page she started with a loud cry of joy. The newspaper
fell from her trembling hand. She caught Clara in her arms. "Oh, my
darling! my darling! news of them at last."

Without answering, without the slightest change in look or manner, Clara
took the newspaper from the ground, and read the top line in the column,
printed in capital letters:

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

She waited, and looked at Mrs. Crayford.

"Can you bear to hear it, Lucy," she asked, "if I read it aloud?"

Mrs. Crayford was too agitated to answer in words. She signed
impatiently to Clara to go on.

Clara read the news which followed the heading in capital letters. Thus
it ran:

"The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has reached
us for publication. The whaling-vessel _Blythewood_ is reported to
have met with the surviving officers and men of the Expedition in Davis
Strait. Many are stated to be dead, and some are supposed to be missing.
The list of the saved, as collected by the people of the whaler, is not
vouched for as being absolutely correct, the circumstances having been
adverse to investigation. The vessel was pressed for time; and the
members of the Expedition, all more or less suffering from exhaustion,
were not in a position to g