I had heard about the _Mary Jane_ from the unhappy John.

What if I had already said too much?
I bent over my breakfast in confusion.
After a dreadful pause, during which I felt, though I could not see, the astonishment in my mother's eyes, she said-- "You don't quite know ?" "No; I think it must have been the _Mary Jane_, but there was a strange sailor picked up.

Uncle Loveday found him, and he seemed to be a foreigner, and he said--I mean--I thought--it was the name, but--" This was worse and worse.

Again at my wits' end, I tried to go on with my breakfast.

After awhile I looked up, and saw my mother watching me with a look of mingled surprise and reproach.
"Was this sailor the only one saved ?" "No--that is, I mean--yes; they only found one." I had never lied to my mother before, and almost broke down with the effort.