Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/218

186 anything happened to Damaris? A glimpse of the girl, sewing by an upper window of the house, reassured her.

“Oh, Thyra, Thyra!” gasped Cynthia.

“Can you stand some good news, Thyra?” asked Carl, in a trembling voice. “Very, very good news!”

Thyra looked wildly from one to the other.

“There’s but one thing you would dare to call good news to me,” she cried. “Is it about — about —”

“Chester! Yes, it’s about Chester! Thyra, he is alive — he’s safe — he and Joe, both of them, thank God! Cynthia, catch her!”

“No, I am not going to faint,” said Thyra, steadying herself by Cynthia’s shoulder. “My son alive! How did you hear? How did it happen? Where has he been?”

“I heard it down at the harbor, Thyra. Mike McCready’s vessel, the Nora Lee, was just in from the Magdalens. Ches and Joe got capsized the night of the storm, but they hung on to their boat somehow, and at daybreak they were picked up by the Nora Lee, bound for Quebec. But she was damaged by the storm and blown clear out of her course. Had to put into the Magdalens for repairs, and has been there ever since. The cable to the islands was out of order, and no vessels call there this time of