niece would be there, who would be glad to hear me
talk about the sea. Miss Rundle said that she had an engagement, and
was very sorry she could not stop; but the old lady signed to the little
girl to accompany me to point out my grandmother's tomb, remarking that
I might otherwise have some difficulty in finding it.

The child tripped away before me, and we soon reached the churchyard.
She pointed out an unpretending white little slab of stone in a quiet
corner, with a number of wild-flowers growing round it, and then,
looking up into my face with an earnest, commiserating look, she nodded
and ran off. I walked up to the stone and read a short inscription--

"ELLA WETHERHOLM LIES BENEATH.
HOPE, IF ON ME YOUR HOPE IS PLACED."

I felt very sad and grave, but I had no longer an inclination to cry.
"She wrote that for herself," I thought. "I'll try and hope as she
hoped, and perhaps her prayers may lighten, if they do not remove, the
heavy curse I brought down on my head."

With regard to the curse I fancied was following me, I now know that I
was entirely mistaken. Our loving Father in Heaven does not curse His
creatures, though He permits for their benefit the consequences of sin
to fall on their heads.

I will not repeat all the ideas which passed across my mind. I was not
nearly so sad as I might have expected. I had met with sympathy and
kindness, though from a stranger, and that lightened the burden; and
then, though Miss Rundle was an odd creature, I could not help feeling
pleased at seeing her again, and hearing from her about my aunt. I had
little fear about her marriage, and I had every expectation of finding
the sailor she had married, some fine old fellow well worthy of her,
even though he had been all his life before the mast. While I was
sitting down beside my grandmother's grave, and thinking of the years
that were past, the days of my childhood, and the many strange things
which had since occurred to me, every now and then reading over the
words on the tombstone: "Hope!--if on me your hope is placed," and
trying to understand their full meaning, and very full I found it, I
happened to look up, and then I saw at a little distance a young woman
who seemed to have been passing along a path across the churchyard,
regarding me attentively. She was dressed in black, which made her look
very fair and pale, and certainly I had never seen anybody else in all
my life