"No, mummie; baby woke up d'rectly you went, an' she was so dreff'ly naughty—she just wouldn't go to sleep again; so I thought I'd better punish her, an' I put her, just this minute, through the porthole, like you said; but I dessay she'll be good now, and p'raps you'd better——but what's the matter, mummie? Are you going to be seasick?" for his mother had turned deathly white, and was holding on to the wall for support.
"My baby, my little one!" she gasped; then, pulling herself together with a sudden effort, she rushed towards the stairs; little Jack, bewildered, but suddenly overcome by a strange feeling of awe, following in the rear. As she reached the deck, she became aware that the liner had stopped; there was a great commotion among the passengers; she heard some one say, "Good dog! brave fellow!" and Rover, pushing his way between the excited people, brought to her feet a dripping, wailing bundle, which she strained to her heart, and fainted away.
Need I narrate what had happened? When little Jack had "put naughty baby through the porthole," Rover was on deck with his two front paws up on the side of the vessel, watching intently some sea-gulls dipping in the waves. He suddenly saw the little white bundle touch the water; some marvellous instinct told him it was his little charge, and he gave a sudden leap over the side. A sailor of the crew saw him disappear, and gave the alarm: "Stop the ship! man overboard!"
A boat was lowered, and in a few seconds Rover was on deck again, holding baby Lily fast between his jaws.
Mrs. West never left her children alone after that; and when, a few days later, on the quay at New York, she was clasped in her husband's arms, she told him, between her sobs, how near he had been to never seeing his little daughter.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S ADVENTURE.
A STORY FOUNDED ON FACT.
BY ALFRED H. MILES.
My grandmother was one of the right sort. She was a fine old lady with all her faculties about her at eighty-six, and with a memory that could recall the stirring incidents of the earlier part of the century with a vividness which made them live again in our eager eyes and ears. She was born with the century and was nearly fifteen years old when Napoleon escaped from Elba, and the exciting circumstances that followed, occurring as they did at the most impressionable period of her life, became indelibly fixed upon her mind. She had relatives and friends who had distinguished themselves in the Peninsula war, in memory of one of whom, who fell in the last grand charge at Waterloo, she always wore a mourning ring.