i8 9 7-]
into a boat. You wish to know how she died, poor girl! Ah, well,
I will tell you.
‘ ‘ First I must tell you that her father, Pierre Be Maguet, was
formerly a ‘topman,’ like myself—an old comrade. He was 1
a widower.
“ Naturally while the widower was at sea, it was I, his com
rade, the old bachelor, who looked after the little one. A good
and gentle child, Monsieur, very courageous and very sweet.
How often both of us went over the rocks at low tide to bring
back turtles, shrimps, sometimes a lobster. Ah, we were a pair
of friends.
“ Things went along like that for two years. Nona had taken
her first communion, springing up like a sand thistle. But there
came a day with a heavy wind, when the Amelia, the boat which
carried Be Maguet, had the bad luck to be driven in toward
shore, and the master not taking in his jib enough they were all
lost on that rock which you see here — Hold! a little more to the
starboard. There were four men in the crew, the master, two sail
ors, of whom my poor Pierre was one, and the cabin boy. But
the sea only brought back three of the drowned ones to the coast,
and kept the body of my comrade. Nona thus became an orphan,
and that I did my best to take her father’s place goes without
saying. But the child, even after the great shock of the disaster
had passed away, would not be consoled. And do you know why,
Monsieur ? Because of an idea which all the women about here
have. They imagine that in order that a soul may rest peace
fully until the judgment day the body must lie on consecrated
earth.
“However, in spite of all, Time brings forgetfulness, and
Nona, at the end of a few years, seemed to me to be a little con
soled. Nevertheless, that had not prevented her from becoming
beautiful, and I say this not because I loved her as a father, but,
on my word of honor, she was the prettiest and the sweetest
girl in the parish. We lived so happily together. We were
not rich, to be sure, but bah! we managed to* make both ends
meet. I had my pension and my medal, and-then we often went
—Nona and I —to seek lobsters on the rocks. The trade was
not bad, but there was always the danger of being overtaken
by the incoming tide. Ah, misery, it was in that way that she
perished, poor little girl.
“ One day when my rheumatism chained me to the house and
“Died at Sea”