im whom she might
never see more. The white sail is smaller and smaller, until it appears
but a speck, and is finally lost in the distance. And then what a sense
of desolation! Oh, might we all seek for strength in time of trouble, of
Him who will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of his children! Who hath
said, "As thy day, so shall thy strength be." Would that all might seek
for comfort in the hour of trial, as did that stricken one,--in prayer!
The Sea-flower had, with Harry, accompanied her father in the ship, as
she was towed out by the steamer over the bar. As they were about to
cast off, when the steamer should return, the father sought to bid his
children farewell. Turning to his boy, he bade him be all that a son and
brother should be. With one long embrace his eye rested upon the
Sea-flower; his voice failed him.

"Father," said the child, "you will soon come to us again; then you will
never leave us;" pointing to a little cross which she had privately
embroidered and set up in his state-room, she said, "you will be happy,
father, so happy, on the water! But sometimes, when the stars look down
upon you, or the great waves break over your ship, you will want to see
us; and when you look at the pretty name which you gave me," (pointing
out the word Natalie, which was wrought upon the foot of the cross),
"you may know that I am thinking of you. Our hearts shall be with you."

With a father's blessing upon his children, he suffered them to be taken
away; and as the loud huzza went up from the deck of the steamer, he saw
his little one gazing back upon him, from amidst the waving banners,
with a look which sank into his heart; her gentle words were still
sounding in his ear, and it would seem as if that voice of childhood
was of riper years. Her words were never forgotten. Over the spirit of
the child there came that which she had never known before; ah! gentle
one, it is but the first drop of bitterness which must be mingled with
the sweets in every life. May the All-Father keep thy feet from hidden
thorns, strewing thy pathway only with the sweet flowers of innocence!
He had gone; and the heart of the Sea-flower echoed,--"he has gone;" the
very breeze which wafted him from home sighed "gone." Is there a heart
which never knew the tone?

CHAPTER IV.

WESTWARD HO!

"I hear the tread of pioneers,
Of nations yet to be;
The first low wash of waves, where soon
Shall roll a human sea."