"How was that?"
"She went away from us one afternoon, and was to come back at night. And it rained--oh, so dreadfully!--that night. We were lodging under some trees, father, mother, and I. Father was ill--very ill, but not with the same kind of illness that he has now sometimes. He had a fever. And mother went into the town to get something for us to eat--as you did that night when the bad boys threw a stone at father, and you brought him home. When father woke we went in search of her. But I never remember seeing mother again. And you are going away, and perhaps I shall never see you again."
"What does the shell say, Minnie?"
Minnie placed the shell to her ear.
"I cannot make out any thing," she said in a voice of pain. "It isn't singing now; it is moaning and sighing."
He took the shell and listened.
"It will speak to me, because I am a sailor."
"And it says?" asked Minnie anxiously.
"And it says--no, it sings--'Little Minnie, little Minnie, Joshua is going to sea, and Joshua will come back, please God, in a year, with beautiful shells and wonderful stories for you and all his friends. So, little Minnie, little Minnie, look happy; for there is nothing to be sorrowful at.'"
"Ah!" said Minnie in less sorrowful tones, "if I was a woman and loved anybody very much, I would not let him go away by himself."