it matter how the trace of his little foot, or how the memory of his short life were obliterated from this earth? There was One above who had numbered every hair of his innocent head, and in His presence she humbly hoped both father and child were now rejoicing. She was just turning away when the sound of steps approached, and the boatman's wife came up. Her features were coarse and her frame was gaunt, as we have said, but she was no longer the termagant of the day before, nor was she ever so. But the lower classes, in the most civilized lands, are often, both in joy and grief, an enigma to those above them; if nature, rare alike in all ranks, speak not for them, they have no conventional imitation to put in her place. The feeling of intense suspense was new to her, and the violence she had assumed had been the awkwardness which, under many eyes, knew not otherwise how to express or, conceal; but she had sound Scotch sense, and a tender woman's heart, and spoke them both now truly, if not gracefully. "Ye'll be frae the hotel, yonder?" she said; "can ye tell me how the puir leddy has rested? I was up mysel' to the house, and they tell't me they could hear her greeting!" Miss Campbell told her in a few words what the reader knows, and asked for her husband. "Oh! he's weel eneugh in body, but sair disquieted in mind. No that he's unmindfu' of the mercy of the Lord to himsel', but he can no just keep the thocht away that it was he wha helped those poor creatures to their end." She then proceeded earnestly to exculpate her husband, assuring Miss Campbell that in spite of the heavy wind and the entangled rope, all might even yet have been well if the gentleman had kept his seat. "But I just tell him that there's Ane above, stronger than the wind, who sunk them in the lake, and could have raised them from it, but it was no His pleasure. The puir leddy would ha' been nane the happier if Andrew had been ta'en as well, and I and the bairns muckle the waur." Then observing where Miss Campbell stood, she continued, in a voice of much emotion, "Ah! I mind them weel as they came awa' down here; the bairnie was playing by as Andrew loosened the boat--the sweet bairnie! so happy and thochtless as he gaed in his beautiful claes--I see him noo!" and the poor woman wiped her eyes. "But there's something ye'll like to see. Jeanie! gang awa' up, and bring the little bonnet that hangs on the peg. Andrew went out again with the boat the night, and picked it up. But it will no be dry." The child returned with a sad token. It was the little fellow's cap; a smart, town-made article, with velvet band, and long silk tassel which had been his first vanity, and his mother had coaxed it smooth as she pulled the peak low down over his fair forehead, and then, fumbling his little fingers into his gloves, had given him a kiss which she little thought was to be the last! "I was coming awa' up wi' it mysel', but the leddy will no just bear to see it yet."