During the night, heavy rains began to fall, and when morning light appeared, all traces of the pathway of their enemy had disappeared; the leaves fell abundantly from the trees, and no mark was left upon the earth to show where they had passed. The baffled party did not give up the search for several days, but nothing transpired to throw any light upon the subject; and they were obliged reluctantly to return, in order to defend their own homes and families from a similar fate. Few doubted little Emily's death; but some still clung to the hope that she was in the land of the living, and might yet be recovered. But her father and mother hoped nothing: grief entirely filled up their hearts. And with the grief arose a new feeling--bitter and poignant remorse. "This is the just punishment," they thought, "that offended Heaven has inflicted upon us, for having wrung _our_ parents' hearts with anguish. Now we feel a parent's agony: now can we realize what we made them suffer. This was the tender spot on which a wound would penetrate to the heart; and here it is that a retributive Providence has struck us. The arrows of the Almighty have pierced us--shall we any longer strive against our Maker? We will humble ourselves in the dust, O righteous Judge, and will return to duty: if it be not yet too late--if our parents still live--incline their hearts to forgive!" And their pitying God heard their prayer, and brought them in safety to their childhood's home, and prepared for them pardon and peace of conscience. For Ellen Buckingham's father had been brought to the brink of the grave by sudden illness, and the stern old man wept like a child, when the village pastor, a faithful minister of the Gospel, told him that the most faultless creed would not avail him if he cherished a hardened, unforgiving spirit, and exhorted him to pardon and bless his exiled son and daughter. His iron heart was subdued within him, and when his wife, whose gentler nature had long since pined for a reconciliation, joined her entreaties to the commands of religion, then, like the sudden breaking up of the ice upon a noble river, his feelings gushed forth beyond control; all coldness and hardness vanished. At this moment it was that James and Ellen Buckingham arrived: they had come in the spirit of the Prodigal Son, not thinking themselves worthy to be called the children of those they had offended; and they were greeted with the same tenderness and overflowing affection described in the parable--their confessions of guilt were stopped by kisses and embraces, and soon they were weeping and recounting their loss, with arms encircling their long-estranged parents.