n down and
reverently lowered into the earth by Richard and Douglas. Mrs. Gray,
though still firm in the intuitive belief that her boy lived, wept
piteously when the earth clattered down upon the box and hid it
forever from view.

"I knows 'tis not Bob," she sobbed, "but where is my lad? What has
become o' my brave lad?"

Bessie, with wet eyes, comforted her with soothing words and gentle
caresses.

Richard and Douglas did their work silently, both certain beyond a
doubt that it was Bob they had laid to rest.

Nothing was said to Emily of the burial. That would have done her no
good and they did not wish to give her the pain that it would have
caused.

The days were rapidly lengthening, and the sun coming boldly nearer
the earth was tempering and mellowing the atmosphere, and every
pleasant afternoon a couch was made for Emily out of doors, where she
could bask in the sunshine, and breathe the air charged with the
perfume of the spruce and balsam forest above, and drink in the wild
beauties of the wilderness about her.

Here she lay, alone, one day late in June while her mother and Bessie
washed the dinner dishes before Bessie came out to join her, and her
father and Douglas, who had come over to dinner, smoked their pipes
and chatted in the house. She was listening to the joyous song of a
robin, that had just returned from its far-off southland pilgrimage,
and was thinking as she listened of the long, long journey that she
was soon to take. Her heart was sad, for it was a sore trial to be
separated all the summer from her father and mother and never see them
once.

She looked down the bight out towards the broader waters of the bay,
for that was the way she was to go. Suddenly as she looked a boat
turned the point into the bight. It was a strange boat and she could
not see who was in it, but it held her attention as it approached, for
a visitor was quite unusual at this time of the year. Presently the
single occupant stood up in the boat, to get a better view of the
cabin.

"Bob! _Bob!_ BOB!" shouted Emily, quite wild and beside
herself. "Mother! Father! Bob is coming! _Bob_ is coming!"

Those in the house rushed out in alarm, for they thought the child had
gone quite mad, but when they reached her they, too, seemed to lose
their reason. Mrs. Gray ran wildly to the sandy shore where the boat
would land, extending her arms towards it and fairly screaming,

"My lad! Oh, my lad!"

Bessie was at her heels