"'Yes,' she said with fond pride, and evidently flattered by our notice of her pets, 'they are indeed beautiful; and alas! their misfortunes are as striking as their beauty. They belonged to a Scotch family on board a vessel that was wrecked off Newfoundland, and their parents perished. Mr. Ferguson, a Scotch gentleman in very infirm health, from our city, was visiting some friends in that vicinity, and happened to be passing in a carriage with one of them on the evening of the storm and the shipwreck, when, noticing the torches and bustle on the shore, they stopped to inquire the cause and to render assistance, if possible, to those who were washed ashore. This little girl had been lashed to a plank, and, by a wonderful providence, when the baby was borne away from his mother, the same wave carried him within reach of his little sister, who seized and clung to him as with a dying grasp, until she was snatched insensible by Mr. Ferguson from the top of a wave which rolled far up on the shore, and would have hurried them back in its receding surf but for a powerful effort on his part, which had nearly cost him his life; for he received injuries in the attempt, by severe sprains and otherwise, that rendered him almost helpless for some weeks. His friend took the children and himself in the carriage to his residence, over two miles distant--it being the nearest house on that unfrequented part of the coast, with the exception of some fishermen's huts at some distance in the opposite direction. Mr. Ferguson was unable to leave his bed for some weeks. Unfortunately, the physician of that neighborhood was absent on a visit to a distant city.
"'It was long before they succeeded in restoring any sign of life to either of the children, and when their efforts were at length rewarded by faint evidences of returning animation, they had to exert themselves to the utmost for many days to keep alive the vital spark, which had been so nearly extinguished. When they began to revive and recover strength, another difficulty met the devoted friends of the little unfortunates. The nerves of the little girl had sustained so severe a shock that she could not be aroused to a sense of any thing around her. She was constantly struggling fearfully with imaginary billows, or settled in a kind of idiotic vacancy. When the physician returned, he gave but little hopes of her recovery, as he feared her brain was so far affected as to unsettle reason permanently.