he almost instantly fell asleep. Lucia
and Mrs. Hall sat watching her, and two hours passed before she woke.

At last, she moved, and Lucia was glad to see that her face was less
pale than when she lay down, and that she looked up at her with a smile.

"Is Mr. Strafford come back?" she said. "He will bring us good news, I
think."

"He has not come yet," Lucia said; but almost as she spoke, footsteps
were heard outside. Mrs. Hall hurried to open the door, and Mr.
Strafford came in.

"They are safe?" Mrs. Costello asked.

"Yes; all three. There was the man and two boys--one of them his son.
The steamer's boat picked up the boys almost immediately. The man's arm
is broken; and he was carried a little way down the stream before they
found him."

"Are they at Claremont?"

"Yes. They will go back home by the steamer to-morrow, and you will hear
more of them when you return to Cacouna."

"And the boat?"

"No one knows anything of that. In the darkness and confusion it must
have floated away with the current."

There was another question to ask, but she stopped, scarcely knowing how
to ask it. Mr. Strafford understood her silence.

"The man told me," he said, "that the coffin was on deck, and that when
the steamer struck them the boat capsized. He himself clung to the side
for a moment when it was upside down in the water, so that everything on
board, which was not secured, must have gone to the bottom."

So it was. Standing beside the home of her married life, she had
witnessed her husband's burial. After his stormy life he was not to
rest in quiet consecrated ground; but to lie where the current of his
native river washed over him continually and kept him in perpetual
oblivion. It was better so. No angry feelings had followed him to his
death; but having been freely forgiven, it was well that he should leave
no memorial behind him--not even a grave--but pass away and be
forgotten. When all was over, Mrs. Costello felt this. For Lucia's sake,
it was well--let the dead go now, and make way for the living.

END OF VOL. II.

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2, by Mrs. Harry Coghill

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANADIAN HEROINE, VOLUME 2 ***

***** This file should be named 18122.txt or 18122.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http: