rrow
to fall unheeded.

Upon Catharine, in particular, these things made a deep impression, and
there as she sat in the green shade, soothed by the lulling sound of the
flowing waters, and the soft murmuring of the many-coloured insects that
hovered among the fragrant leaves which thatched her sylvan bower,
her young heart was raised in humble and holy aspirations to the great
Creator of all things living. A peaceful calm diffused itself over her
mind, as with hands meekly folded across her breast, the young girl
prayed with the guileless fervour of a trusting and faithful heart.

The sun was just sinking in a flood of glory behind the dark pine-woods
at the head of the lake, when Hector and Louis, who had been carefully
providing fish for the morrow, (which was the Sabbath,) came loaded
with their finny prey carefully strung upon a willow wand, and found
Catharine sleeping in her bower. Louis was loth to break her tranquil
slumbers, but her careful brother reminded him of the danger to which
she was exposed, sleeping in the dew by the water side; "Moreover," he
added, "we have some distance to go, and we have left the precious axe
and the birch-bark vessel in the valley."

These things were too valuable to be lost, and so they roused the
sleeper, and slowly recommenced their toilsome way, following the same
path that they had made in the morning. Fortunately, Hector had taken
the precaution to bend down the flexile branches of the dogwood and
break the tops of the young trees that they had passed between on their
route to the lake, and by this clue they were enabled with tolerable
certainty to retrace their way, nothing doubting of arriving in time at
the wigwam of boughs by the rock in the valley.

Their progress was, however, slow, burdened with the care of the lame
girl, and heavily laden with the fish. The purple shades of twilight
soon clouded the scene, deepened by the heavy masses of foliage, which
cast a greater degree of obscurity upon their narrow path; for they had
now left the oak-flat and entered the gorge of the valley. The utter
loneliness of the path, the grotesque shadows of the trees, that
stretched in long array across the steep banks on either side, taking,
now this, now that wild and fanciful shape, awakened strange feelings
of dread in the mind of these poor forlorn wanderers; like most persons
bred up in solitude, their imaginations were strongly tinctured with
superstitious fears. Here then,