they reached home Nellie went to her room, and Nan and Dorothy told Mrs. Minturn about their friend's sudden sadness. Mrs. Minturn, of course, went up to see if she could do anything for Nellie.
There she found the little stranger crying as if her heart would break.
"Oh, I can't help it, Mrs. Minturn!" she sobbed. "It was the ocean. Father must be somewhere in that big, wild sea!" and again she cried almost hysterically.
"Tell me about it, dear," said Mrs. Minturn, with her arm around the child. "Was your father drowned at sea?"
"Oh no; that is, we hope he wasn't," said Nellie, through her tears, "but sometimes we feel he must be dead or he would write to poor mother."
"Now dry your tears, dear, or you will have a headache," said Mrs. Minturn, and Nellie soon recovered her composure.
"You see," she began, "we had such a nice home and father was always so good. But a man came and asked him to go to sea. The man said they would make lots of money in
