we were to find the coveted shells and sea-weed; and there we lighted our fire, and from my basket I produced the tea and sugar, and sweet-cake mamma had stowed therein, and we made a most satisfactory repast, which was all the more enjoyable because it was taken under difficulties and in unusual circumstances. And then we set to work collecting, Gilbert and I with discretion, Bertha with more zeal than judgment, for she wearied herself in hunting after the commonest specimens, and brought armfuls into the boat of the sea-weed which abounded at our very doors at home, and contributed her lapful of shells, which I should not have cared to pick up, because I could gather them by the bushel at any time I pleased upon the shore before our house. But Gilbert never scolded her, and I took my cue from him, and we quietly separated the rare specimens and left the rest behind us. Then we all talked together till the fading light warned us to return, and I was anxious to fulfil my promise to mamma.

Not one of us had a watch; but Gilbert said it was earlier than it seemed, for the evening was closing in very heavily; "and," he added, "there will be a storm sooner than I thought, Miss Margaret: those clouds behind the Tor mean mischief, and the air feels more sultry-like than it did an hour ago. Bertha, child, pack up those tea-cups, and hand the kettle over; we must set out without a moment of delay. Miss Margaret and Alice, please settle yourselves at once. I am so sorry, but we are so shut in here with these towering rocks, and I was so keen to find the scarlet weed the Doctor told me of this morning, that I never noticed the change up aloft. If we make haste, however, we'll get the "Little Gipsy" harboured in the creek before the storm comes on."

But before we had neared the great bare headland of the giant Tor, we heard a solemn voice come pealing from afar, its echoes dying mutteringly upon the darkening waves. At the same time the gloom grew deeper, and Gilbert, who, I thought, looked very anxious, said, "The wind is getting up."

CHAPTER IV.

"6
THE WRECK OF THE LITTLE GIPSY."

AND the wind was getting up,-slowly, indeed, and almost imperceptibly to any but a practised ear; but presently there came a low, shuddering moan across the waves, which began to rise and fall very hurriedly; our flag, which had drooped idly all the afternoon, began to flutter famously, our sail commenced to fill, and ere long we could hear the roar of the advancing tide,-which, however, would not be at flood till nearly midnight,-and the breeze swept shrilly all around us, mingling its weird blast with the scream of the sea-birds, who were evidently looking forward to the tempest with exhilarated spirits.

Gilbert gathered in the sails, and said it would be hard work till we had doubled the Tor, but we must depend upon our oars; and he gave several directions to Bertha, which, nautical as I was in my experiences, I could not comprehend. I volunteered to take an oar, for I could row very well in tolerably calm water; and he replied, "Not now, Miss Margaret; I can do all there is to be done at present; and your tender little hands would not do much in this strong current ; but if I have more than I can manage, I'll ask you to help me, I promise you. There's another pair of sculls underneath the seat ;-I only hope we may not want them." 66 Do you think we shall, Gilbert ?"

"That depends, Miss Margaret, upon what way we make before the storm is on us. If we can get round the Tor, and well set towards the shore before the tempest bursts, it will be all well; but, you know, we have to make such a bend, and get out so far to avoid the reef;—and then the bar that stretches from the Head right into St. Eldred's Bay. We've got to go against tide for a good mile yet, and this wind, which is dead against us, keeps us back."

"Do let me take the sculls, Gilbert; I am sure you might trust me."

"I know I might, Miss Margaret, and do; for didn't I teach you to handle them myself? But"-and he spoke in a low concentrated whisper,-"keep your strength, Miss Margaret; you may want it."

I felt awed and a little afraid, though I did not anticipate any real danger. But the darkness thickened rapidly, and the waves grew more and more turbulent; and presently, looking out sea-wards, we saw only a waste of tumbling waters of inky blackness in the livid light that fell from the edges of that pall-like cloud. But every wave swept upwards with a crest of snowy foam, making the sable hollow all the darker from the contrast. The coast lay far away, like dream-land; only on the great shaggy Head of the weather-beaten Tor there fell one lingering beam of pallid sunshine, showing us all the huge wrinkles, and scars, and airy recesses of the mighty pile of rock. Frowningly, I thought, the solemn Tor looked down upon us, as, keeping at a respectful distance from the long, sharp reef which ran out from his foot, we silently toiled on across that restless sea, on which our tiny bark seemed no better than a cockleshell. By-and-by, when I looked again, that pale, cold, lingering beam was gone, and the Tor stood up like Giant Despair, in the fast-increasing gloom, and I could scarcely see the face of Bertha at the other end of the boat. Then the heavens seemed to open, and all the sea, and all the land from cape to cape of that wide Bay, and all the sullen sky, was turned to fire; but only for a moment, and then came the most awful, crashing thunder and midnight darkness on the foaming waters.

I hid my face in terror, for I had never seen such lightning, or heard such deafening thunder; and involuntarily I thought of the day of days that was hasting on, even the great day of the Lord, when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. And again and again came the fiery levin, and the mingled roar of waves and thunder, and we could make no way against the terrific wind and the surging tide that drove us inland close upon the great Tor reef. I had the sculls

now, and laboured with all my might; and Gilbert strained every nerve; and Bertha, though she was crying bitterly, kept to her post, and obeyed the commands of her brother, as he shouted them through the uproar of the storm.

At last, however, the boat became perfectly unmanageable; the helm no longer answered; it was fruitless spending all our strength in rowing against that mighty wind and tide, and we could only let ourselves drift away in the direction of the dreaded sunken rocks. Every minute the huge black Tor drew nearer, and we knew that any moment the "Little Gipsy" might strike and be shivered into spars.

"It is of no use," said Gilbert, laying down his oar. "Miss Margaret, don't kill yourself tugging with those sculls; it's of no mortal use: we have done all we can!"

"What must we do then? You don't mean- -?"

"I mean that we must cry to the Lord to help us, for we cannot help ourselves, and the winds and the waves are too much for us; only, Miss Margaret, He holds the winds in the hollow of His hand, and He can say to these raging waves, 'Be still !'"

"The Lord is mightier than the noise of many waters," said Alice. "Don't fear, Bertha; you know we read those very words this morning."

"But people have been drowned," sobbed Bertha; “and it may be God's will that we should go down."

"And if it be," said Alice, "all is well-if,-if—” She looked at me, and at Bertha, and I knew what she meant. It would be well with her; for Alice was of those who are safe for evermore under the shadow of the Almighty wings,safe in life and safe in death, at peace now and for evermore. And I knew, but yet could not comprehend, the secret of this never-ending peace; I knew the sublime truths on which that sweet peace rested, but they were to me as a noble-sounding poem in a language I had never listened to before.

"Oh, Miss Margaret," cried Gilbert, "what would I not give to see you safe on shore! What will the doctor feel! and my own mother and father! Oh, Alice, it is terrible!"

Alice drew, near, and whispered something, which in the wild uproar of wind, and wave, and thunder, I could not catch. But I saw him take her hand, and the brother and sister looked into each other's eyes, and the calm that rested on the girl's pale face was reflected in Gilbert's serious dark eyes and in the quiet smile that flitted for an instant over his boyish features. They were words of faith and comfort that passed between the pair,-of that I felt assured; but I could conceive of nothing that could give one real consolation in such extremity.

Suddenly there was a shock, and a harsh, grating sound, and we knew that the "Little Gipsy" had struck. The thunder was growing fainter, and the lightning less vivid, but the sea was literally boiling over the submerged reef, and the great Tor was right ahead of us. Before we could say a word, before Bertha had risen from the nearly prostrate position into which the violent concussion had thrown her, we felt, rather than saw, that the boat was filling.

"It is all over with the 'Little Gipsy,'" said Gilbert, mournfully; "but we are so near the shore, that I may perhaps save you. If we could but get upon that rock!" "What rock, Gilbert?”

"The rock we call St. Eldred's Pulpit; it is not often quite under water, and this is only an ordinary tide. The sides are steep and slippery, but, once on the smooth, square platform at top, I think we could manage."

As he spoke he stepped from the leaky boat, telling us to bale out the water as long as we could, for the leak was small at present, though the cracking went on, and the bows of the "Little Gipsy" were straining fiercely in the surging current.

Gilbert was up to the waist, but his feet, he cried, were on the solid rock, and he thought he could reach the Pulpit. I saw him look up for an instant to the wild sky above, and I knew that the look went far beyond the heavy stormclouds into the heaven of heavens itself. That solemn, uplifted glance, that upraised hand, told me that he committed himself and us to the Great Ruler of the mighty deep, the