seemed at the moment to have been forgotten by the departing throng;
and for a time the young master of Pine Towers, as he bade adieu to
his father's guests, witnessed a scene in sharp contrast to yesterday's
orderly decorum. It was with a sigh of relief that Edward Macleod saw
the last of the miscellaneous vehicles move off, and the final guest
take the road to the bateaux on the lake, to convey him and those who
were returning by water to Holland Landing, there to find the means of
reaching the Capital.

Entering the house, empty now of all but those who were left of its
usual inmates, including his sister's friend, the beautiful
Helene--whom he had hardly had an opportunity to more than greet on
his return from England--an overpowering sense of desolation fell upon
him. Seating himself near his mother's favourite window, the young
man's loneliness and bereavement found vent in tears. All the past
came vividly before him--a mother's life-long devotion and tender
care; her thousand winning ways and loving endearments; her pride in
his future career and prospects; and the recollection of the many
innocent confidences which a mother loves to pour into the ear of a
handsome, grown-up son, whose filial affection and chivalrous devotion
assure her that she still possesses charms to which her husband and
his contemporaries of a previous generation had been wont sedulously
to pay tribute. "Ah, beautiful mother, it is not to-day nor to-morrow
that I shall fully realize that I am to see thee no more on earth,"
said the young man musingly, as he left his seat and strode nervously
up and down the room, while his favourite hound from a rug by the
large open fire-place eyed his agitated movements.

Presently the young man's soliloquies were interrupted by the timid
entrance of his sister, Rose, followed by the more decided and stately