should have been thus returned, they bade him go his way,
and leave their child in peace. He did go, but like a
thief he returned. In the darkness of midnight he stole
to her chamber, and bore away from the home of her
childhood, "a father's joy, a mother's pride."

Who can tell the anguish of their souls when they entered
that deserted chamber? How desolate their lonely
hearthstone! How dark the home where her presence had
scattered rainbow hues! A terrible blow it was to Capt.
Willard; a very bitter thing thus to have his cherished
plans frustrated, his brightest hopes destroyed; to see
the very sun of his existence go down at midday in clouds
and darkness. Yes, to the stern father this sad event
brought bitter, bitter grief. But to the mother--that
tender, affectionate mother, it was death. Yea, more than
death, for reason, at the first shock, reeled and tottered
on its throne; then, as days and weeks passed by, and
still the loved one did not return, when every effort to
find her had been made in vain, then, the dread certainty
settled down upon her soul that her child was lost to
her forever. Hope, gave place to despair, and she became,
from that time, a raving maniac. At length death came
to her relief, and her husband was left alone.

Six weary years passed over the lonely man, and then he
rejoiced in the intelligence that his child was still
living with her husband at St. John's. He immediately
wrote to her imploring her to return to her old home,
and with the light of her presence dispel the gloom of