He looked up, and made a hopeless gesture with his hands.
"Don't, Sairay," he said huskily, "don't give way, but—but I've bad news."
A great trembling now shook her limbs, and she lifted her hands as if to ward off a blow, but her agonized eyes seemed dragging the words out of him.
"Your father, Sairay, he's—he's—the Nautilus went to pieces, like the tub she wor, and he's"—
"Drowned!" screamed Morton, putting his hands to his ears.
"Who's drowned?" cried Molly, running to them. "Why, Jap, that you?
Where's pa?"
Sara, who had not spoken, at this dropped to the doorstep, and, doubling up in a forlorn little heap, buried her face in her hands. Morton burst out crying; and Molly, with a puzzled look around, joined in promptly, thinking it the proper thing to do, though she had not yet an idea of what had really happened.
But why prolong the heart-rending scene, as little by little Jasper stammered out all the story he had to tell, and the poor children began to realize how doubly orphaned they were? This was a grief before which the loss of their. stepmother seemed as nothing. They had loved their big, kind, good-natured father as a companion, far more than a parent; and the thought of never meeting him again, of never hearing his well- known greeting after his absences,—
"Waal, waal, younkers, come and kiss your old dad! Did you miss him much, eh?"—seemed intolerable.
Sara, under this new blow, for a time lost all self-control, and broke into such a passion of grief, that Jasper, much frightened, ran for the nearest neighbor, Mrs. Updyke.