"His exercises have given him so much nerve, and so steady a hand, that he already shoots very fairly.

I should expect him to grow up into a fine man, Margaret, were it not that I have the gravest fears as to this mad enterprise, which I cannot help telling you, both for your good and his, is, in my opinion, absolutely hopeless." "I know, Mortiz," she said, "that you think it is folly, on my part, to cling to hope; and while I do not disguise from myself that there would seem but small chance that my husband has survived, and that I can give no reason for my faith in his still being alive, and my confidence that he will be restored to me some day, I have so firm a conviction that nothing will shake it.

Why should I have such a confidence, if it were not well founded?
In my dreams, I always see him alive, and I believe firmly that I dream of him so often, because he is thinking of me.
"When he was at sea, several times I felt disturbed and anxious, though without any reason for doing so; and each time, on his return, I found, when we compared dates, that his ship was battling with a tempest at the time I was so troubled about him.

I remember that, the first time this happened, he laughed at me; but when, upon two other occasions, it turned out so, he said: "'There are things we do not understand, Margaret.

You know that, in Scotland, there are many who believe in second sight, as it is called; and that there are families there, and they say in Ireland, also, where a sort of warning is given of the death of a member of the family.