tly
and the pure. Or who knows but it floated round Cape Horn, from that
other wreck, on the Pacific shore, of the "Central America," where the
rough miners found that there was room in the boats only for their
wives and their gold; and where, pushing the women off, with a few men
to row them, the doomed husbands gave a cheer of courage as the ship
went down.

Here again is a piece of pine wood, cut in notches as for a tally, and
with every seventh notch the longest; these notches having been cut
deeply at the beginning, and feebly afterwards, stopping abruptly
before the end was reached. Who could have carved it? Not a school-boy
awaiting vacation, or a soldier expecting his discharge; for then each
tally would have been cut off, instead of added. Nor could it be the
squad of two soldiers who garrison Rose Island; for their tour of duty
lasts but a week. There are small barnacles and sea-weed too, which
give the mysterious stick a sort of brevet antiquity. It has been long
adrift, and these little barnacles, opening and closing daily their
minute valves, have kept meanwhile their own register, and with their
busy fringed fingers have gathered from the whole Atlantic that small
share of its edible treasures which sufficed for them. Plainly this
waif has had its experiences. It was Robinson Crusoe's, Annie, depend
upon it. We will save it from the flames, and when we establish our
marine museum, nothing save a veritable piece of the North Pole shall
be held so valuable as this undoubted relic from Juan Fernandez.

But the night deepens, and its reveries must end. With the winter will
pass away the winter-storms, and summer will bring its own more
insidious perils. Then the drowsy old seaport will blaze into splendor,
through saloon and avenue, amidst which many a bright career will end
suddenly and leave no sign. The ocean tries feebly to emulate the
profounder tragedies of the shore. In the crowded halls of gay hotels,
I see wrecks drifting hopelessly, dismasted and rudderless, to be
stranded on hearts harder and more cruel than Brenton's Reef, yet hid
in smiles falser than its fleecy foam. What is a mere forsaken ship,
compared with stately houses from which those whom I first knew in
their youth and beauty have since fled into midnight and despair?

But one last gleam upon our hearth lights up your innocent eyes, little
Annie, and dispels the gathering shade. The flame dies down again, and
you draw closer to my sid