rson who had bought a number of his cattle, was
separated from his child. He had not been absent from the spot where he
had left him for ten minutes; but the child had disappeared; and search
was made for him throughout the fair, but he was nowhere to be found,
neither could any one give tidings of him. The anxious father sought his
lost child from booth to booth; and, with his friends, he also searched
the adjoining woods. He called his son by name, till, from far amidst
the trees, it was echoed back; but that cheerless echo, or the scream of
a startled bird, was the only reply. The disappearance of the child was
a mystery which no one could unriddle. His father, during the few
minutes that he was to be absent, had left him in charge of a servant,
who confessed having entered a drinking booth, and as the liquor went
round, he perceived not that the child had left his side. For many days
his father sought him sorrowing; but all search proved vain.

Mr. Cunningham returned to his house, a heart-broken and miserable man.
The last, the only being that he loved on earth, had disappeared from
his fond gaze, even as a beautiful vapour of strange shapes and gorgeous
colours, which we gaze upon in the heavens, and turning from it but for
a moment, we look for it again--but it is not. He refused to listen to
words of consolation, or even of hope; and for several years he left not
his house, but sat in loneliness, making a companion of his sorrow.

Now, it was on a dark and dismal winter night, seven years after the
disappearance of his son, when the hail rattled fiercely against the
narrow casements of his habitation, and the wind howled wildly over the
earth, tearing the branches from the naked trees, and causing the cattle
to crowd together for shelter--that a wild voice was heard singing a
wilder dirge, as if to the measure and music of the storm. The sound
came from an open shed adjoining the house, where the cattle had been
placed for shelter.

The servants informed their master that a strange woman, whose wits
seemed disordered, had crept into the shed, where, before morning, from
the fury of the storm, she would doubtless perish. They took a light,
and he accompanied them to the shed.

Before them a wretched being sat upon the straw, and the hail dashed
bitterly against her unshrinking, but time-worn and storm-beaten
features. Her grey hairs waved loose and wildly in the wind. Her hands
were clasped together upon her b