was none to answer. I cried for
help, but none came. Then I looked up to heaven, and high above the
darkness of the tempest and the gloom of the deep, one star shining in
solitary glory arrested my despairing gaze. I had seen it before with
the eye of faith, but never beaming with such holy lustre as now, when
all other lights were withdrawn.

"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on my darkness, and lend me thine aid.
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."

Why, tender and pitying Saviour, do we wait for the night time of sorrow
to fathom the depths of thy love and compassion? Why must every fountain
of earthly joy be dried up, before we bow to taste the waters of Kedron;
and every blossom of love be withered, before we follow thee to the
garden of Gethsemane?

CHAPTER LI.

Though the circumstance of discovering a brother in the lover of my
youth seems more like romance than reality, nothing could be more simple
and natural than the explanation of the mystery. His recollection did
not go back to the period recorded in my mother's manuscript, when he
was brought as a lawful heir to the home in which my early infancy was
sheltered. His first remembrances were associated with a mother's sorrow
and loneliness,--with an humble dwelling in one of the by-lanes of the
city of New York, where she toiled with her needle for their daily
bread.

"I remember," said Richard, "how I used to sit on a low stool at my
mother's feet, and watch her, as she wrought in muslin the most
beautiful flowers and devices, with a skill and rapidity which seemed
miraculous to me. Young as I was, I used to wonder that any one could
look so sad, while producing such charming figures. Once, I recollect,
the needle resisted her efforts to draw it through the muslin. She threw
it from her, and taking another from the needle-case met with no better
success.

"'_Oh! mon Dieu!_' she cried, dropping her work in her lap and clasping
her hands, 'my tears rust them.'

"'And why do you let so many fall, mother?' I asked. 'Where do they all
come from?'

"'From a breaking heart,' she answered, and I never forgot her looks or
her words. The breaking heart became an image in my mind, almost as
distinct as the rusted steel. For a long time I was afraid to jump or
bound about the room, lest the fracture in my mother's heart should be
made wider, and more tears come gushin