Seventeen years had rolled on their returnless flight since that night of withering sorrow.  Kenneth Gordon still lived, a sad and broken-spirited man; but time, that great tamer of the human heart, which dulls the arrows of affliction, and softens the bright tints of joy down to a sober hue, had shed its healing influence even over his wounded heart.  Mary Gordon had been some years a wife, and her children played around Kenneth’s footsteps.  A little Marion recalled the wife of his youth; and another, Charlie, the image of his lost son, slept in his bosom.  There was yet another person who was as a sunbeam in the sight of Kenneth; her light laugh sounded as music in his ears, and the joy-beams of her eyes fell gladly on his soul.  This gladdener of sorrow was his daughter Alice, now a young and lovely woman; bright and beautiful was she, lovely as a rose-bud, with a living soul—­

    “No fountain from its native cave,
    E’er tripped with foot so free;
    She was as happy as a wave
    That dances o’er the sea.”

Alice was but five months old when her mother was taken from her, but Mary, who watched over her helpless infancy with a care far beyond her years, and with love equal to a mother’s, was repaid by Alice with most unbounded affection; for to the love of a sister was added the veneration of a parent.

One bright and balmy Sabbath morning Kenneth Gordon and his family left their home for the house of prayer.  Mary and her husband walked together, and their children gambolled on the grassy path before them.  Kenneth leaned on the arm of his daughter Alice; another person walked by her side, whose eye, when it met her’s, deepened the tint on her fair cheek.  It was William Douglas—­the chosen lover of her heart, and well worthy was he to love the gentle Alice.  Together they proceeded to the holy altar, and the next Sabbath was to be their bridal day.

A change had taken place since Kenneth Gordon first settled on the banks of the lonely river.  The white walls and graceful spire of a church now rose where the blue smoke of the solitary log-house once curled through the forest trees; and the ashes of Kenneth’s children and his father reposed within its sacred precincts.  A large and populous village stood where the red deer roved on his trackless path.  The white sails of the laden barque gleamed on the water, where erst floated the stealthy canoe of the savage; and a pious throng offered their aspirations where the war-whoop had rung on the air.

Alice was to spend the remaining days of her maiden life with a young friend, a few miles from her father’s, and they were to return together on her bridal eve.  William Douglas accompanied Alice on her walk to the house of her friend.  They parted within a few steps of the house.  William returned home, and Alice, gay and gladsome as a bird, entered a piece of wood, which led directly to the house.  Scarcely had she entered it when she was seized by a strong