st thou mourn to see me preceding
thee to a place where we can love one another without wrong--where
nothing will prevent our union--where all pernicious prejudices, all
arbitrary exclusions, all hateful passions, and all tyranny, are silent?
I shall wait for thee, then, and rest!"

So centred were my dying thoughts on Wentworth--so calmly did I await
the great change that men call sudden death!

All this time--a time much briefer than that I have taken in recounting
my sensations--the glorious summer's sun, the sun of morning, was
bathing the sea; the ship, with beauty, and a soft, fresh breeze, was
fanning every pallid brow with a caressing, silken wing, that seemed to
mock its wretchedness.

I thought not once of Christian Garth. I had ceased to strain my eyes
for a distant sail, to seek to compromise with my fate or make
conditions with my Creator. Dunmore was forgotten. I was composed to
die--not resigned. These things are different; a bitter patience
possessed me that I felt would sustain me to the end, but I was not
satisfied that my doom was just or opportune.

"Farewell, sweet, young, vigorous life!" I moaned aloud. "Farewell,
Miriam! It will not be thou, but a phantom, that shall arise from dead
ashes! Farewell, dear hand, that hast served me long and well!" and I
kissed my own right hand. I had not known until that moment how truly I
loved myself. "Sister, lover, farewell! Mother, father, receive me!
Gentle Constance, reach forth thy guiding hand and lead me to my
parents! Wentworth, remember me! Saviour, my soul is thine!"

I bowed my head. I had no more to say. Unwilling I was to die--afraid I
was not; for, as I sat there, my whole life swept before me, as it is
said to do before the eyes of the drowning, and rapidly as one may sweep
the gamut on a piano with one introverted finger, and I saw myself as
though I had been another. I had done nothing to make me afraid to meet
my God; so, with closed eyes, I lingered in the shadow, conscious of
nothing save exceeding calm, when the grasp of my gentle friend of the
moment aroused me to a sense of what was occurring, and I saw, with
horror indescribable, the fierce flames leaping from the deck, heard the
hoarse shouts, beheld the lurid surging of an agonized and despairing
multitude! But above all rang the clear, trumpet-tones of Captain
Ambrose, soon to sink in death:

"To the boats--to the boats! but save the women first--the children--as
ye are Christia