t the young
Englishman had suggested that they should look to see if the "Star"
would shine a welcome to their home-coming.

"It is _my_ Star, remember, Jack," said his wife, "and it will be guilty
of no such irregularity as showing itself on a night like this."

"You forget, my lady," was the reply, "that the Star is now mine. The
Marsh has the Star, and my lady has the Marsh; but I have my lady, and
so possess all!"

"Oh, Jack," cried the girl, with a shudder, "there it is! I am sure
something will happen. Let us sell the Marsh to-morrow, dear; for now
that I belong to you I can no longer protect you from the spell. I had
forgotten that!"

"Very well," said Desbra, lightly, "if you say so, we'll sell
to-morrow."

As the two stood locked in each other's arms, and straining their eyes
into the blackness, the violet ray gathered intensity, and almost seemed
to reveal, by fits, the raving turmoil of the rapidly mounting tide.

In a few moments Desbra became absorbed, as it were, in a sort of waking
dream. His frank, merry, almost boyish countenance took on a new
expression, and his eyes assumed the strange, far-focused steadfastness
of the seer's. His wife watched, with a growing awe which she could not
shake off, the change in her husband's demeanor; and the fire-light in
the cheerful room died away unnoticed.

At last the girl could bear no longer the ghostly silence, and that
strange look in her husband's face. "What do you see, Jack?" she cried.
"What do you see? Oh, how terribly it shines!"

When Desbra replied, she hardly recognized his voice.

"I see many ships," said he, slowly, and as if he heard not the sound of
his own words. "They sail in past Blomidon. They steer for the mouths of
the Canard and Gaspereau. Some are already close at hand. The strange
light of the 'Eye of Gluskap,' is on the sails of all. From somewhere I
hear voices singing, '_Nos bonnes gens reviendront._' The sound of it
comes beating on the wind. Hark! how it swells over the marshes!"

"I do not hear anything, Jack, dear, except these terrible gusts that
cry past the corners of the house," said Jessie, tremulously.

"How light it grows upon the New Marsh, now!" continued her husband, in
the same still voice. "The 'Eye' shines everywhere. I hear no more the
children crying with the cold; but on the Marsh I see an old man
standing. He is waiting for the ships. He waves his stick exultantly to
welcome them. I know him,--it is old