prayer was granted, and he pressed him again to his bosom, exclaiming again, “He is my son.”  A small gold cross hung suspended from the collar of Charles.  Kenneth knew it well; it had belonged to Marion, who hung it round her son’s neck e’er her eyes were closed.  She had sickened early of her captivity, and died while her son was yet a child:  but the relics she had left were prized by him as something holy.  From his wampum belt he took a roll of the bark of the birch tree, on which something had been written with a pencil.  The writing was nearly effaced, and the signature of Marion Gordon was alone distinguishable.  Kenneth pressed the writing to his lips, and again his bruised spirit mourned for his sainted Marion.  Mary and Alice greeted their restored brother with warm affection.  Kenneth lived but in the sight of his son.  Charles rejoiced in their endearments, and all the joys of kindred were to him

    “New as if brought from other spheres,
     Yet welcome as if known for years.”

But soon a change came o’er the young warrior; his eye grew dim, his step was heavy, and his brow was sad:  he sought for solitude, and he seemed like a bird pining for freedom.  They thought he sighed for the liberty of his savage life, but, alas! it was another cause.  The better feelings of the human heart all lie dormant in the Indian character, and are but seldom called into action.  Charles had been the “stern stoic of the woods” till he saw Alice.  Then the first warm rush of young affections bounded like a torrent through his veins, and he loved his sister with a passion so strong, so overwhelming, that it sapped the current of his life.  The marriage of Alice had been delayed on his return—­it would again have been delayed on his account, but he himself urged it forward.  Kenneth entered the church with Charles leaning on his arm.  During the ceremony he stood apart from the others.  When it was finished, Alice went up to him and took his hand; it was cold as marble—­he was dead; his spirit fled with the bridal benediction.  Kenneth’s heart bled afresh for his son, and as he laid his head in the earth he felt that it would not be long till he followed him.  Nor was he mistaken; for a few mornings after he was found dead on the grave of “The Lost One.”

* * * * *

And now the bright summer of New Brunswick drew onward to its close.  The hay, which in this country is cut in a much greener state than is usual elsewhere, and which, from this cause, retains its fragrance till the spring, was safely lodged in the capacious barns.  The buck wheat had changed its delicate white flower for the brown clusters of its grain, and the reaper and the thrasher were both busied with it, for so loosely does this grain hang on its stem that it is generally thrashed out of doors as soon as ripe, as much would be lost in the conveyance to the barn.