CHAPTER XI.
PERKINS ANXIOUSLY SEEKS LIZZY GLENN.
ONE Morning, a few days after the young man named Perkins had related to his friend the history of his attachment to Miss Ballantine and his subsequent bereavement, he opened a letter which came by mail, among several relating to business, postmarked New Orleans.

It was from an old friend, who had settled there.

Among other matters, was this paragraph:-- "I heard something the other day that surprised me a good deal, and, as it relates to a subject in which no one can feel a deeper interest than yourself, I have thought it right to mention it.

It is said that, about a year and a half ago, a young woman and her father suddenly made their appearance here, and claimed to be Mr.and Miss Ballantine.

Their story, or rather the story of the daughter (for the father, it is, said, was out of his mind), was that the ship in which they sailed from New York had been burned at sea, and that a few of the passengers had been saved in a boat, which floated about until all died but herself and father; that they were taken up almost exhausted, by a Dutch East Indiaman, and that this vessel when near the Cape of Good Hope, encountered a gale, and was blown far off south, losing two of her masts; and that she was finally wrecked upon an uninhabited island, and the few saved from her compelled to remain there for nearly two years before being discovered and taken off.