While we stood gazing on the scene, enchanted and delighted, one came near and joined our group.  Nobility of mind and birth was written on his brow in beauty’s brightest traits.  He seemed hardly nineteen, but, young as he was, many a wild breeze had parted the wavy ringlets of his hair, and the salt spray of the ocean raised a deeper hue on his cheek.  His light and graceful figure was clad in the becoming costume of his rank, and on his richly braided bosom rested three half blown roses.  Ella’s eyes for an instant met his, they fell upon the flowers, and she dropped fainting from my arm.  The mystery was soon explained.  De Clairville, such was the stranger’s name, had been walking on the cliffs when Ella sought the stream—­he heard her voice and approached to see from whence it came—­his was the face she had seen upon the waters; he heard her scream, and descended to apologise, but she was gone, and he had found and worn her rose buds—­

    “Oh! there are looks and tones that dart
    An instant sunshine through the heart,
    As if the soul that instant caught
    Some treasure it through life had sought;
    As if the very lips and eyes,
    Predestined to have all our sighs,
    And never be forgot again,
    Sparkled and spoke before us then.”

So sings the poet, and so seemed it with Ella and De Clairville; and when the rosy morn, tinging the eastern sky, announced to the revellers the hour of parting, that night of happiness was deemed too short.

To hasten on my story, I must merely say that they became fondly attached, and when De Clairville departed for another station, he left Ella as his betrothed bride.  On love such as theirs ’twould seem to all that heaven smiled; but inscrutable to human eyes are the ways of Providence, for deadly was the blight thrown o’er them.

Meanwhile the events in which the country was engaged drew to a close.  England acknowledged the independence of America, and withdrew her forces; but while she did so, offered a home and protection to those who yet wished to claim it.  We were among the first to embrace the proposal:  and though with sadness we left our sunny home with all its fond remembrances, yet integrity of mind was dearer still.  We might not stay in the land with whose institutions we concurred not.  Conrad, with his learning and talents, ’twas thought, might remain to seek the path of fame already opening to him; but what to him were the dreams of ambition, compared to the all-engrossing thought which now bound each faculty of his mind beneath its power.  Ella, my mother also wished to stay, nor attempt with us the perils of our new life; for here her betrothed, when he returned, expected to meet her; but she flung her arms around my mother, saying in the language of Ruth, “thy home, dearest, shall be mine,” and there shall De Clairville join us.  Suffice it, then, to say, that after bidding farewell to scenes we loved, our wearisome voyage was ended, and we landed on these sterile and dreary shores.  We dared not venture from the coast, and our abode was chosen in what appeared to us the best of this bleak and barren soil.  ’Twas a sad change, but those were the days of strong hearts and trusting hopes.