NAN.

ROUND the cliff ran the pathway, and along the pathway darted a beautiful bright
butterfly, and after the butterfly darted Nan. What the butterfly thought about it all it
is impossible to say. Probably he observed that Nan did not run very fast, and accordingly.
“felt perfectly safe. What Nan felt is easier-to infer. Not that she was so very eager to
catch the butterfly after all: at all events, she soon stopped her chase and stood gazing out
to sea, What did she see? A: little cloud rising out of the
the horizon. Was it chance
made her gaze so
yonder? What had
for her? What was
bringing to her?
darted across her eyes
Nan took up the chase. —
and a tender darkness
and the girl hastened
that lay below. |
there was a wreck upon
caused by a storm so
had never forgotten it, and
whenever the sky and sea
ship—a fine East India-

 

west, and a strange vessel on
or foreboding that
steadfastly and sadly
the cloud in its bosom
the strange vessel
But the butterfly
again, and once more
Presently the sun sank,
fell upon sea and shore,
home to the littlevillage
Twelve years ago
that shore, a wreck.
terrible that the village
seldom ceased to talk of it
were threatening. The
man—had been taken on a sunken reef through the care-
lessness of a drunken pilot: and then the wind which had been blowing —
‘ strongly turned to a perfect hurricane, and the vessel was literally torn to pieces. Of the
whole ship’s company, passengers and crew, only one was saved—and that a tiny baby just -
born at sea and plucked from her dead mother’s breast when the body was thrown ashore.
The baby is now a strong, bright girl ; and you have seen her this afternoon chasing the
butterfly round the cliff, above the very sea where she may almost be said first to have seen -
the light.
The lifeboat had gone out to the wreck but it was in vain ; and the brave fellows who

  
   
 
 
   

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