"She is ill," said Mr. Leslie in a low tone to Aunt Faith; "you had better take her upstairs."
Aunt Faith roused herself from her own grief; "come, dear," she said, rising.
"I shall not go," said Bessie; "I shall wait here for Hugh."
At this moment Tom and Gem ran into the room.
"Oh, Aunt Faith! what is it?" began Tom. "We met some boys and they told us that the America was run into last night."
Gem looked at Bessie and Sibyl, and then without a word, she sat down in her little chair and began to cry bitterly. Aunt Faith could not answer Tom, the sound of Gem's violent weeping, and Sibyl's sobs, seemed to choke the words on her lips.
"I don't believe a word of it!" cried Tom indignantly. "Hugh can swim better than any one in Westerton, and he's as strong as a lion! I'm going right down to the dock, and you'll see him coming back with me before night."
"Hugh is dead!" said Bessie again; "Hugh is dead!"
The hours passed slowly in those long minutes of weary waiting in which young hearts grow into old age in a single day. Friends and neighbors flocked into the old stone house, and their voices were hushed as they came and went with kindly but useless sympathy. Mr. Leslie had gone to the scene of the accident on a fast tug, accompanied by some of Hugh's young companions, and as, during the day, different vessels came into port, they were boarded by anxious friends and the latest reports eagerly sought. The bank of the lake was thronged, people stood there with glasses, in spite of the steady rain, scanning the eastern horizon in the hope of discovering the smoke of approaching propellers. Others had friends on board the America besides the family at the old stone house. But Hugh was well known and well liked, and his was the only young life among those still missing from Westerton; the others were middled-aged or old, and with that universal sympathy which the death of a bright vigorous youth always awakens, the whole town mourned for Hugh, and stories of his generous, manly nature, flew from mouth to mouth, until even strangers felt that they knew him.
At five o'clock a tug returned bringing a man and wife exhausted with twelve hours in the water lashed to floating spars; but they soon revived, and the good news flew through the city, and friends told it to the family in the old stone house, clustered together around Bessie, who had not changed her attitude or tasted food since morning. "If they were saved, why not Hugh?" they said hopefully.