Then he went on : `` Of all the folks I see here there are two that are more vivid and real than all the rest , master . One is my sister Alice . She died thirty years ago . She was very beautiful . You 'd hardly believe that to look at Tamzine and me , would you ? But it is true . We always called her Queen Alice -- she was so stately and handsome . She had brown eyes and red gold hair , just the colour of that nasturtium there . She was father 's favourite . The night she was born they did n't think my mother would live . Father walked this garden all night . And just under that old apple-tree he knelt at sunrise and thanked God when they came to tell him that all was well . `` Alice was always a creature of joy . This old garden rang with her laughter in those years . She seldom walked -- she ran or danced . She only lived twenty years , but nineteen of them were so happy I 've never pitied her over much . She had everything that makes life worth living -- laughter and love , and at the last sorrow . James Milburn was her lover . It 's thirty-one years since his ship sailed out of that harbour and Alice waved him good-bye from this garden . He never came back .
His ship was never heard XXXXX again .
at in of on over since than that to under