Lisbet is calling me to go with her in the little goat-phaeton for a drive in the park. The next time I write I will tell you about this cunning little phaeton.
Gute Nacht—träume süss, as they say here. It means just what I say to you at home, Good-night and pleasant dreams.
Your loving mamma,
Bessie Maynard.
P.S.—Please tell Cousin Fanny, who reads my letters to you, that I do wish she would be your meanuensis, and write to me for you. If she looks close in your eyes, she can see what you will want to say, even if you do not speak, and a letter from you would be such a comfort to your anxious mamma.
[A SAILOR'S WIFE.]
There have been heroines as well as heroes on the sea, and of these Mrs. Annie Wilson is certainly one. When she was fourteen years of age, she married the captain of a vessel sailing from Boston, and for seven years accompanied him on his voyages around the world, without accident.
But in 1872 the ship encountered a terrible storm off the banks of Newfoundland. The captain was knocked down and his shoulder was broken by the fall of one of the masts. The first mate and several of the crew were also disabled, and the second mate was so frightened that he could not give any orders. The captain was carried down, lashed on a door, into the cabin; and when his wife saw him rendered helpless in this way, instead of yielding to useless lamentations, she only thought of what she could do to supply his place. She rushed on deck, and called the men around her.
"Boys, our lives are in danger," she said; "but stick to me, and do what I tell you. I'll take you into port all right."
She set them to work to clear away the wreck; they manned the pumps; and when the gale had subsided a little, they rigged up a jury-mast, under their new captain's orders, set sail again, and in twenty-one days the ship was safely anchored at St. Thomas.