Presently Captain Holmes, who was unwilling to leave his brother Ben without fairly rooting out every thread of the romance that bound the little fellow to the sea, proceeded once more with his narrative.

"But I'll tell you what, Master Ben, is the most shocking sight of all that a sailor has to witness, ay, and one that makes a stark coward of the bravest, and a thoughtful man of the most thoughtless-death, youngster !-death, where there are no church-yards to store the body in, and no tomb-stones to record even the name of the departed; death, amid scenes where there is an everlasting craving for home, and yet no home-face near to soothe the last mortal throes of the sufferer. Why, lad, I've seen a stout, stalwart fellow leave the deck in the very flush of life and health, as I came on duty at the watch after his, and when I've gone below again, some few hours afterward, I have found him stricken down by a sun-stroke as suddenly as if he had been shot, and the sailmaker sitting by his berth, and busy sewing the corpse up in his hammock, with a cannon ball at the feet. The first death I had ever witnessed, lad, was under such circumstances as these. I was a mere youngster, like yourself, at the time, and had been by the man's side day after day-had listened to his yarns night after night-had heard him talk, with a hitch in his breath, about the wife and little baby-boy he had left behind had seen her name (ay, and some half a dozen others), with hearts and love-knots under them, pricked in blue on his great brawny arms. I had known him, indeed, as closely as men locked within the same walls for months together, and suffering the same common danger, get to know and like one another. I had missed sight of his face for but a few hours, and when I

saw it next the eye was fixed and glazed, the features as if cut in stone, the hand heavy and cold as lead; and I felt that, boy as I was, I had looked for the first time deep down into the great unfathomable sea of our common being. The hardest thing of all, lad, is to believe in death; and when we have been face to face with a man day by day, there seems to be such a huge gap left in the world when he is gone, that the mind grows utterly skeptical, and can hardly be convinced that an existence, which has been to it the most real and even palpable thing in all the world, can have wholly passed away. To look into the same eyes, and find them return no glance for glance; to speak, and find the ear deaf, the lips sealed, and the voice hushed, is so incomprehensible a change that the judgment positively reels again under the blow. Ashore, lad, you can get away from death-you can shut it out with other scenes-but on board ship it haunts you like a spectre; and then the day after comes the most dreadful scene of all-burial on the high seas.”

The captain remained silent for a moment or two, so that Ben might be able to "chew the cud" of his thoughts. Holmes had noticed the little fellow's head drop at the mention of the death at sea, and he was anxious that the lad should realize to himself all the horror of such a catastrophe.

Presently Captain Holmes began again: "As the bell tolls, the poor fellow's shipmates come streaming up the hatchways, with their heads. bare and their necks bent down; for few can bear to look upon the lifeless body of their former companion, stretched, as it is, on the hatches beside the ship's gangway, pointing to its last homethe sea; while the ship's colors, with which it is covered, scarcely serve to conceal the outline of the mummy-like form stitched in the hammock

underneath. It needs no elocution, Ben, to make the service for the dead at sea the most solemn and impressive of all prayers--an outpouring that causes the heart to grieve and the soul to shudder again in the very depth of its emotion; for, with the great ocean itself for a cathedral, and the wild winds of heaven to chant the funeral dirge, there is an awe created that can not possibly be summoned up by any human handiwork. And when the touching words are uttered of ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,' and the body is slid from under the colors into the very midst of the ocean

-as if it were being cast back into the great womb of Nature itself-a horror falls upon the senses like a deep absorbing stupor."

Another long pause ensued. The captain himself was absorbed in recalling all the sad associations of the scenes he had described. Josiah and Uncle Benjamin had long forgotten the little lad whose love of the sea had been the cause of the discourse, and were silently nursing the pious thoughts that had been called up in their minds, while poor Mrs. Franklin sat sobbing and muttering to herself disjointed fragments of prayers.

Presently the mother rose from her seat, and, flinging herself on the captain's shoulder, wept half hysterically; at last, with a strong effort, she cried through her sobs, "The Lord in heaven reward you, Holmes, for saving my boy from such a fate."

Next Uncle Benjamin started from his chair, and, going toward his little namesake, said, as he led him to his weeping parent, "Come, dear lad, promise your mother here you will abandon all thoughts of the sea from this day forth."

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"I do, mother," cried the boy; "I promise you I will."

The mother's heart was too full to thank her

boy by words; but she seized him, and, throwing her arms about his neck, half smothered him with kisses, that spoke her gratitude to her son in the most touching and unmistakable of all language.

"Give me your hand, sir," said Josiah to little Benjamin; "let us be better friends than we yet have been, and to-morrow you shall choose a trade for yourself."

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Oh, thank you, father, thank you," exclaimed the delighted lad; and that night he told his joys to his Guinea-pig, and slept as he had never done before.

END OF PART I.

PART II.

YOUNG BEN'S LESSON IN LIFE, AND WHAT HE

LEARNED FROM IT.

CHAPTER VII.

GOING OUT IN THE WORLD.

Ir was arranged by Josiah and his wife, after parting with the captain overnight, that young Benjamin should be intrusted to the care of his uncle for a few days before being called upon to select his future occupation in life.

Uncle Benjamin had pointed out to the father that he was too prone to look upon his boy as a mere industrial machine, and had begged hard to be allowed to take his little godson with him "out in the world" for a while, so as to give him some slight insight into the economy of human life and labor.

"The lad at present," urged the uncle, "is without purpose or object. He knows absolutely nothing of the ways of the world, and has no more sense of the necessity or nobility of work, nor, indeed, any clearer notion of the great scheme of civilized society, than an Indian papoose. What can a child like him," the godfather said, "understand of the value of prudence, of the overwhelming power of mere perseverance, or of the magic influence of simple energy and will, till he is made to see and comprehend the different springs and movements that give force,