but his love for them only increased his sorrow for
the dead and the lost. Kenneth became a prematurely old man--his dark
hair faded white as the mountain snow--his brow was wrinkled, and his
tall figure bent downwards to the earth.

Seventeen years had rolled on their returnless flight since that night
of withering sorrow. Kenneth Gordon still lived, a sad and
broken-spirited man; but time, that great tamer of the human heart,
which dulls the arrows of affliction, and softens the bright tints of
joy down to a sober hue, had shed its healing influence even over his
wounded heart. Mary Gordon had been some years a wife, and her children
played around Kenneth's footsteps. A little Marion recalled the wife of
his youth; and another, Charlie, the image of his lost son, slept in his
bosom. There was yet another person who was as a sunbeam in the sight of
Kenneth; her light laugh sounded as music in his ears, and the joy-beams
of her eyes fell gladly on his soul. This gladdener of sorrow was his
daughter Alice, now a young and lovely woman; bright and beautiful was
she, lovely as a rose-bud, with a living soul--

"No fountain from its native cave,
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She was as happy as a wave
That dances o'er the sea."

Alice was but five months old when her mother was taken from her, but
Mary, who watched over her helpless infancy with a care far beyond her
years, and with love equal to a mother's, was repaid by Alice with most
unbounded affection; for to the love of a sister was added the
veneration of a parent.

One bright and balmy Sabbath morning Kenneth Gordon and his family left
their home for the house of prayer. Mary and her husband walked
together, and their children gambolled on the grassy path before them.
Kenneth leaned on the arm of his daughter Alice; another person walked
by her side, whose eye, when it met her's, deepened the tint on her fair
cheek. It was William Douglas--the chosen lover of her heart, and well
worthy was he to love the gentle Alice. Together they proceeded to the
holy altar, and the next Sabbath was to be their bridal day.

A change had taken place since Kenneth Gordon first settled on the banks
of the lonely river. The white walls and graceful spire of a church now
rose where the blue smoke of the solitary log-house once curled through
the forest trees; and the ashes of Kenneth's children and his father
reposed within its sacred precincts. A large and po