Overwhelming as was the blow, a mitigation was sent with it. The stranger babe thus thrown upon Margaret’s tenderness, proved a solace which nothing else could have afforded, and in the cares attendant upon her new charge, the dreary sense of loneliness, following the loss of a loved one, was robbed of half its power. Many were the wondering surmises of Donald and his wife, in reference to the manner in which the babe had been thus given to them. The dark mantle in which it had been closely enfolded, had first attracted Donald’s attention amid the snow-drifts, for the little forsaken one was already wrapped in that fatal slumber which, if not soon broken, knows no waking—and the young man’s heart was melted with kindly sympathy as he thought of his own darling, so he raised the light burden from its soft but dangerous resting-place, bore it to gentle and tender hands—and as days, and weeks, and months wore away, no one appearing to claim the lost one, closer and closer their hearts were wound about her, till their love seemed even as that they had borne their _own_ angel Ally—as they called her. Sometimes Margaret would almost forget that her second Ally was not, indeed, the very same as that one they had laid with such heart-yearnings beneath the snow-clad turf; and yet the two were very unlike. The face of the stranger was full of earnest thought. Her large, dark, liquid eyes, so full of dreamy tenderness, beamed with almost spiritual beauty; and a hasty word would bring the tears to her eyes, the warm blush to her cheek, and a strange imploring expression over her whole countenance; whereas her elder namesake was ever a joyous child, light and graceful, full of the heedlessness so natural to her tender age—and few things there were that had power to dim her sunny spirit. Year after year sped on unmarked, save by the introduction of one little stranger after another into the once lonely household of Donald McLane. Alice, their eldest and loveliest, had ripened gradually from the beautiful child, their pet and plaything, to the gentle, thoughtful girl of sixteen, watching with unwearied care the slightest wish of her parents, (for she knew not that they were otherwise,) and striving by every means in her power to lighten their burdens. The secret of her history had been carefully kept from her as well as the fair-haired, happy flock around them; for why should they sadden a life so unshadowed as hers, with thoughts that must bring suffering to her loving nature?