owing morning was dark and cloudy, but calm and without rain.
When the family were all assembled, every member of it evinced traces
of deep feeling, and every eye was fixed upon the serene but melancholy
countenance of the boy with tenderness and sorrow. He himself maintained
a quiet equanimity, which, though apparently liable to be broken by
the struggles of domestic affection, and in character with his meek and
unassuming disposition, yet was supported by more firmness than might be
expected from a mind in which kindness and sensibility were so strongly
predominant. At this time, however, his character was not developed,
or at least not understood, by those that surrounded him. To strong
feelings and enduring affections he added a keenness of perception and
a bitterness of invective, of which, in his conversation with his father
concerning Yellow Sam, the reader has already had sufficient proofs. At
breakfast little or nothing was eaten; the boy himself could not taste
a morsel, nor any other person in the family. When the form of the meal
was over, the father knelt down--"It's right," said he, "that we should
all go to our knees, and join in a Rosary in behalf of the child that's
goin' on a good intintion. He won't thrive the worse bekase the last
words that he'll hear from his father and mother's lips is a prayer for
bringin the blessin' of God down upon his endayvors."

This was accordingly performed, though not without tears and sobs, and
frequent demonstrations of grief; for religion among the peasantry is
often associated with bursts of deep and powerful feeling.

When the prayer was over, the boy rose and calmly strapped to his back
a satchel covered with deer-skin, containing a few books, linen, and a
change of very plain apparel. While engaged in this, the uproar of grief
in the house was perfectly heart-rending. When just ready to set out, he
reverently took off his hat, knelt down, and, with tears streaming from
his eyes, craved humbly and meekly the blessing and forgiveness of his
father and mother. The mother caught him in her arms, kissed his lips,
and, kneeling also, sobbed out a fervent benediction upon his head;
the father now, in the grief of a strong man, pressed him to his heart,
until the big burning tears fell upon the boy's face; his brothers
and sisters embraced him wildly; next his more distant relations; and
lastly, the neighbors who were crowded about the door. After this he
took a light sta