There is no promise of happiness as in 'Maud.'" "Then it is my turn to ask questions.

Why did you hit upon that poem among so many ?" "Because it contains an exact description of our position here.

Don't you remember how the poor fellow "'Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail.' "I am sure Tennyson saw our island with poetic eye, for he goes on-- "'No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east; The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail." She declaimed the melodious verse with a subtle skill that amazed her hearer.

Profoundly moved, Jenks dared not trust himself to speak.
"I read the whole poem the other day," she said after a silence of some minutes.

"Sorrowful as it is, it comforted me by comparison.