Then came a long, long silence,
and then tidings that the _Eastern Star_ had been wrecked on a reef in
the Indian ocean! The mother had given back her treasure into the same
beloved hands whence she first received him. "I gave him to God, and God
took him," she said. "I shall have him again in God's time." This was how
she settled the whole matter with herself. Diana had mourned with all the
vehement intensity of her being, but out of the deep baptism of sorrow
she had emerged with a new and nobler nature. The vain, trifling,
laughing Undine had received a soul and was a true woman. She devoted
herself to James's mother with an utter self-sacrificing devotion,
resolved as far as in her lay to be both son and daughter to her. She
read, and studied, and fitted herself as a teacher in a neighboring
academy, and persisted in claiming the right of a daughter to place all
the amount of her earnings in the family purse.
And this year there was special need. With all his care, with all his
hard work and that of his family, Deacon Silas never had been able to
raise money to annihilate the debt upon the farm.
There seemed to be a perfect fatality about it. Let them all make what
exertions they might, just as they were hoping for a sum that should
exceed the interest and begin the work of settling the principal would
come some loss that would throw them all back.
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