en now. The rattling of the window-frames will
bring what you have told me to remembrance ever after this night. How
much does it require to establish a lifeboat?"

"Between five and six hundred pounds," replied Mr Summers. "After
which about twenty pounds annually will suffice to maintain it in
working order."

"So much!" exclaimed Mrs Foster. "I fear that you will find it
difficult to raise so large a sum."

"I trust not, but if we raise a pretty large proportion of it, the
Lifeboat Institution will make up the balance. Perhaps"--here the old
gentleman paused and looked dubiously at Mrs Foster--"perhaps you would
like to know the precise nature of the objects for which the Lifeboat
Institution has been founded. Will you do me the favour to listen for
five minutes longer? The operations of the Institution are of deep
importance to the national welfare."

Mrs Foster at once expressed her willingness to listen, and the old
gentleman, re-opening his bundle of papers, selected one from which he
read sundry interesting details regarding the National Lifeboat
Institution.

It need scarcely be said, that with such a sympathetic mind to address
as that of Mrs Foster, Mr Summers prolonged his visit for another
hour, and it is perhaps equally unnecessary to say that the worthy lady
found a suitable object on which to bestow the sovereign which had
perplexed her so much at an earlier part of the evening. She not only
gave the money with the air of a "cheerful giver," but she begged Mr
Summers to send her as many papers on the subject of lifeboats and
wrecks as he happened to be possessed of, and promised to become an
active agent in pleading with her friends in behalf of the object he had
in view.

The wind was rising while the party in Sandhill Cottage were thus
engaged. It came in ominous and heavy gusts, rattling the window-frames
and moaning in the chimneys to such an extent that Mrs Laker, who was
of a timid and superstitious nature, was fain to sit outside the parlour
door in order to be near the other inmates of the cottage.

"About a thousand lives lost in each year on the shores of this
kingdom!" thought Mrs Foster, as she lay in bed that night listening to
the rising storm with feelings of awe and solemnity which she had never
before experienced.

If Mrs Foster had been acquainted with the subject in detail, she might
have had further food for solemn reflection in the fact that the greater
part of th