"There's the station!" cried Theresa, almost throwing herself through the window in her eagerness, "and there's a man standing on the platform all by himself. Can that be papa?"
A whistle, a clank, a long creaking groan, and the train comes to a stand-still. But almost before it has stopped, the door flies open, and the next moment I see the children banging in a cluster upon a tall, fine-looking man with a thick gray mustache, while three voices shout, joyfully,
"Papa! papa! you see?"
"Yes, dears, I see, thank God!" says the old soldier, fervently; "and when the doctor was going to begin, I laid your portraits beside my chair, that they might be the first thing I saw."
There were not four happier people, I will answer for it, in all Austria that day; and the remembrance of that meeting is still among the brightest of my travelling recollections.
[THE VICTIMS OF THE ARCTIC SEAS.]
BY SHERWOOD RYSE.
On the evening of the 9th of May, thirty graduates of the school-ship St. Marys, and one hundred of the present pupils, were gathered together on the gun-deck of that vessel. Finely built, robust-looking lads were these last, of the stuff that good sailors are made of; and as they lounged in easy and careless attitudes upon and about the guns, they made a picture that gave assurance that the rising generation of our sailors will be no disgrace to those who have gone before them. It was easy to see from the manner of the boys and their expectant looks that they had been called together for no ordinary purpose. They had met to do honor to a noble officer, who is among the latest and most lamented victims of those dread arctic seas, the mysteries of which so many gallant men have striven to solve.
During the years 1876, 1877, and 1878 Commander De Long had been executive officer of the school-ship, and his memory was revered as the memory of noble men always is. What wonder, then, that when the news, so long expected, yet so lovingly dreaded, reached them, his former pupils were anxious to do him such honor as their regard and affection suggested?