to the beach, where all
the town was gathered.

He could see the doomed vessel plainly where the surf broke over her.
Her masts had snapped short off and at every wave she rolled and beat
the sand as if she would pound herself to fragments. Several figures
were clinging to the broken masts, and one by one the waves beat them
off, and they went down for ever.

At length but one was left, and he held on so long that a shout of
encouragement went up from the throng. At this Ham, the bravest and
strongest of all the hardy boatmen there, tied a rope about his waist
and plunged into the sea to try to save him. But it was not to be. The
same huge wave that dashed the vessel to pieces threw the rescuer back
on the sand, dead. The body of the man he had tried to save was washed
ashore, too, and it was that of James Steerforth, who had so wronged
little Em'ly!

So poor, great-souled Ham died, honest and faithful to the last, giving
his life for the man who had injured him. And so, too, James Steerforth
met his fate on the very spot where he had done such evil, for his
corpse was found among the fragments of the old Peggotty house-boat,
which the tempest tore down that night.

After this David went abroad and stayed three years. He lived in
Switzerland, and wrote novels that were printed in London and made him
famous there.

And now, alone, he had time to think of all that made up his past. He
thought of Dora, his child-wife, and sorrowed for her, and of the
Peggottys and little Em'ly; but most of all he found himself thinking
of Agnes, who, throughout his youth, had seemed like his guiding star.

So one day he went back to England and told her, and asked her if she
would marry him. And with her sweet face on his breast she whispered
that she had loved him all her life!

David and Agnes lived long and happily, and their children had three
guardians who loved them all--Miss Betsy Trotwood, David's old nurse,
Peggotty, and white-haired Mr. Dick, who taught them to fly kites and
thought them the greatest children in the world. Tommy Traddles, when he
had become a famous lawyer, often visited them, and once, too, Mr.
Peggotty, older, but still hale and strong, came back from Australia to
tell them how he had prospered and grown rich, and had always his little
Em'ly beside him, and how Mr. Micawber had ceased to owe everybody money
and had become a magistrate, and many other things.

David had one thing, however, to tell Mr.