"Boys, I'm not very well. Excuse me—I can't play to-night."
And hesitatingly, like a person who has been stunned, he got up, and left the place. Few felt inclined to jeer him. John Winch begun to say something about "the parson going to pray," but it was frowned down.
Frank went on deck. The evening was mild, the wind was south, the sky was clear and starry; it was like a May night in New England. The schooner was riding at anchor in the sound; other vessels of the fleet lay around her, rocking gently on the tide—dim hulls, with glowing, fiery eyes; and here there was a band playing, and from afar off came the sound of solemn singing, wafted on the wind. And the water was all a weltering waste of waves and molten stars.
But little of all this Frank saw, or heard, or heeded. His soul was rapt from him; he was lost in wonder and grief.
"Can you tell me any thing?" said a voice at his side.
"O, Atwater," said Frank, clutching his hand, "what does it mean? As I was playing, I saw—I saw—every thing else disappeared; cards, counters, the bench we were playing on, and there before me, as plainly as I ever saw any thing in my life——"
"What was it?" asked Atwater, as Frank paused, unable to proceed.
"My sister Hattie." then said Frank, in a whisper of awe, "in her coffin! in her shroud! But she did not seem dead at all. She was white as the purest snow; and she smiled up at me—such a sweet, sad smile—O! O!"
And Frank wrung his hands.