ey
seldom hesitated to go wherever Tom led them.

"One day, while my mother was slightly ill and Nora was attending to
her, Tom disobeyed the commands that had been given him, and took his
younger companions out on the ocean for a ride in his boat. No one knows
how far they went, or exactly what happened to them; but a sudden squall
sprang up, and the children being missed, my mother insisted, ill as she
was, in running down to the shore to search for her darlings. Braving
the wind and drenched by rain, the two mothers stood side by side,
peering into the gloom, while brave men dared the waves to search for
the missing ones. The body of the girl was first washed ashore, and my
mother rocked the lifeless form in her arms until her dead son was laid
beside her. Then young Tom's body was recovered, and the horror
was complete.

"When my father arrived, three days later, he not only found himself
bereaved of the two children he had loved so tenderly, but his young
wife was raving with brain fever, and likely to follow her babies to the
grave. During that terrible time, Nora, who could not forget that it was
her own adventurous son who had led all three children to their death,
went suddenly blind--from grief, the doctors said.

"My father pulled his wife back to life by dint of careful nursing; but
whenever she looked at the sea she would scream with horror; so it
became necessary to take her where the cruel sound of the breakers could
never reach her ears. I think the grief of Thomas and Nora was scarcely
less than that of my own parents, and both men had suffered so severely
that they were willing to abandon the sea and devote their lives to
comforting their poor wives. Captain Wegg sold all his interests and his
wife's villa, and brought the money here, where he established a home
amid entirely different surroundings. He was devoted to my mother, I
have heard, and when she died, soon after my birth, the Captain seemed
to lose all further interest in life, and grew morose and unsociable
with all his fellow-creatures.

"That, young ladies, is the story of what Thomas and Nora call their
'great trouble'; and I think it is rightly named, because it destroyed
the happiness of two families. I was born long after the tragedy, but
its shadow has saddened even my own life."

When the boy had finished, his voice trembling with emotion as he
uttered the last words, his auditors were much affected by the sad tale.
Patsy was po