t her Sabbath where
the paralytic lay--and there she sung the lonely psalm, and said the
lonely prayer, unheard in Heaven as many repining spirits would have
thought--but it was not so; for in two years there came a meaning to his
eyes, and he found a few words of imperfect speech, among which was that
of "Mother." Oh! how her heart burned within her, to know that her face
was at last recognised! To feel that her kiss was returned, and to see
the first tear that trickled from eyes that long had ceased to weep! Day
after day, the darkness that covered his brain grew less and less
deep--to her that bewilderment gave the blessedness of hope; for her son
now knew that he had an immortal soul, and in the evening joined faintly
and feebly and erringly in prayer. For weeks afterwards he remembered
only events and scenes long past and distant--and believed that his
father, and all his brothers and sisters, were yet alive. He called upon
them by their names to come and kiss him--on them, who had all long been
buried in the dust. But his soul struggled itself into reason and
remembrance--and he at last said, "Mother! did some accident befall me
yesterday at my work down the glen?--I feel weak, and about to die!" The
shadows of death were indeed around him; but he lived to be told much of
what had happened--and rendered up a perfectly unclouded spirit into the
mercy of his Saviour. His mother felt that all her prayers had been
granted in that one boon--and, when the coffin was borne away from the
shieling, she remained in it with a friend, assured that in this world
there could for her be no more grief. And there in that same shieling,
now that years have gone by, she still lingers, visited as often as she
wishes by her poor neighbours--for to the poor sorrow is a sacred
thing--who, by turns, send one of their daughters to stay with her, and
cheer a life that cannot be long, but that, end when it may, will be
laid down without one impious misgiving, and in the humility of a
Christian's faith.

The scene shifts of itself, and we are at the head of Glenetive. Who
among all the Highland maidens that danced on the greenswards among the
blooming heather on the mountains of Glenetive--who so fair as Flora,
the only daughter of the King's Forester, and grandchild to the Bard
famous for his songs of Fairies in the Hill of Peace, and the
Mermaid-Queen in her Palace of Emerald floating far down beneath the
foam-waves of the sea? And who, am