"My mother! O, my mother!" cried she, in agony.
Poor girl! I wanted to cry with her. Flora threw her arms around her neck, and wept with her.
"Your mother was in the steamer—was she?" I added.
"She was—and lost."
"Perhaps not," I suggested.
"O, I know she was."
"Probably some were saved."
"I dare not hope so," sobbed she, uncovering her eyes, and glancing at me. "I was sitting clear back, as far as I could get, looking into the water, when this terrible thing happened. I was thrown into the river by the shock, or I jumped in—I don't know which. I caught hold of that stick, but I did not know what I was doing."
"But where was your mother?" I asked. "She may have been equally fortunate."
"The boat was racing with another, and Mr. Spear asked my mother to go forward, and see the furnaces under the boilers, which, he said, were red hot. I was reading a book, and did not want to go. In two or three minutes after they went, the boiler burst. My mother must have been very near the furnaces when the explosion took place."