every tone, to guard every look and
movement in her presence. But they could not shut from her ears the boom
of the cannon which heralded the approach of the foe--they could not
hush the startling cries with which others met the announcement of their
arrival, and the first evidences of that savage fury which desolated
their homes, and left a dark stain on the escutcheon of Britain. Mrs.
Sinclair uttered no cry when her terrors were thus excited, she even
strove to smile upon her loved ones, to raise their drooping hearts; and
in this, woman's holiest task, the springs of her life gave way--not
with a sudden snap, but slowly, gently--so that for hours her husband
and daughter stood watching the shadow of death steal over her, hoping
yet to catch one glance of love, one whispered farewell ere she should
pass for ever from them.

"Fear not, my child," said Mr. Sinclair, when their sad vigils were
first interrupted by those who urged their flight--"they are enemies, it
is true, but they are Englishmen, a peaceful clergyman, a defenceless
woman, are safe in their hands--they will not harm us."

"I have no fear, no thought of them, father!" said Mary Sinclair, as she
turned weeping to the only object of fear, or hope, or thought, at that
moment.

But soon others of Mr. Sinclair's parishioners came to warn him that his
confidence had been misplaced, that no character, no age, no sex, had
proved a protection from the ruthless fury of their assailants. He would
now have persuaded his daughter to accompany her friends to a place of
safety, and when persuasions proved vain he would have commanded her,
but, lifting her calm eyes to his, she said, "Father have you not taught
me that, in all God's universe, the only safe place for us is that to
which our duty calls us--and is not my duty here?"

A colder heart would have argued with her, and might, perhaps, have
proved to her that her duty was not there--that her father could watch
the dying, and that it was her duty to preserve herself for him; but Mr.
Sinclair folded her in his arms while his lips moved for an instant in
earnest prayer, and then, turning to his waiting friends, he said, "Go,
go, my friends--I thank you--but God has called us to this, and he will
care for us."

When the work of desolation had been completed in the quarter first
attacked, parties of soldiers straggled off from the main body in search
of further prey. Fearful was it to meet these men--their faces