“Do not let me go. It is cold, and the wind—Hark! Listen, oh listen how sweet and soft the waters wash! Hold me close, Tommy. I am weary. Why, it is Summer! Look! see the land, the foreign land! Stay, Tommy, I am tired—so tired—”
Her head had drooped back heavily on the man’s arm, but her lips still moved, and suddenly her face lighted up with a radiant smile.
“Nearer,—come nearer—How bright the sunlight shines upon your face! Tommy, my boy—my sailor boy—”
So, on that bleak March morning when the Nereid came in, Miriam had indeed gone to meet her son, her sailor son, on that far, far off foreign shore that is girdled by the mightier ocean of eternity.
REINHART, THE GERMAN.
Poor Reinhart! He certainly was a brilliant fellow. Even the German Professors overlooked his English origin, and felt proud of him. Probably they argued that if he was born in Yorkshire, it was not his fault. And, besides, as the name showed, his family, no matter where they had since strayed, must have been, at some period of the past, true children of the Fatherland.
As far as he was concerned, he seemed to have very little attachment for his native country. Indeed, he never evinced very much of an attachment for any place or any body. We had been together the greater part of ten years. He possessed a singular influence over me. I hardly know what I would not have done for Reinhart. But he was in disposition not the least demonstrative; and whether he ever saw any attraction in me, I can not tell. I simply imagined so, because time wore away without drifting us apart.