MEMOIR. 



Upon the instant they were separated by the swaying 

 crowd, but Mrs. Downing still kept near her mother, and 

 sister, and brother. The flames were now within three 

 yards of them, and her brother said, " We must get over- 

 board." Yet she still held some books and a parasol in 

 her hand, not yet able to believe that this was Death creep- 

 ing along the deck. She turned and looked for her hus- 

 band. She could not see him and called his name. Her 

 voice was lost in that wild whirl and chaos of frenzied de- 

 spair, and her brother again said to her, " You must get 

 overboard." In that moment the daughter looked upon 

 the mother the mother, who had said to her daughter's 

 husband when he asked her hand, " She has been the comfort 

 of her mother's heart, and the solace of her hours," and 

 she saw that her mother's face was " full of the terrible re- 

 ality and inevitable necessity " that awaited them. The 

 crowd choked them, the flames darted toward them ; the 

 brother helped them upon the railing and they leaped into 

 the water. 



Mrs. Downing stretched out her hands, and grasped 

 two chairs that floated near her, and lying quietly upon 

 her back, was buoyed up by the chairs ; then seizing an- 

 other that was passing her, and holding two in one hand 

 and one in the other, she floated away from the smoking 

 and blazing wreck, from the shrieking and drowning crowd, 

 past the stern of the boat that lay head in to the shore, 

 past the blackened fragments, away from the roaring death 

 struggle into the calm water of the river, calling upon God 

 to save her. She could see the burning boat below her, 

 three hundred yards, perhaps, but the tide was coming in, 

 and after floating some little distance up the river, a current 

 turned her directly toward the shore. Where the water 

 was yet too deep for her to stand, she was grasped by a 



