The Rev. John Braunton was a man past middle age, of acute intellect, conscientious principles, and benevolent disposition. From his keen perceptive faculties it was impossible to hide the fact that the mysterious lady, who took such deep and painful interest in this child, was other than the boy’s mother. Having arranged a system of correspondence with the clergyman, and paid a half year’s salary in advance, Marguerite Helmstedt departed for her Virginia home, full of intense anxiety as to the reception she would meet from her husband. We know what that reception was. Philip Helmstedt must have sacrificed her life to his jealous rage but that she was destined to be the mother of his child. He kept his wife from her son for fifteen years. In the meantime Mr. Braunton, who regularly received his salary, wondered that he received no more visits from the guardian or mother of his pupil. As the years passed he expostulated by letter. Marguerite wept, but could not go. Some time after this, Braunton suddenly appeared before her on the island to inform her that her boy, grown restive in his rustic residence, had run away from home. Nothing could be discovered in relation to the missing youth, and from this time Marguerite Helmstedt’s health rapidly declined. Once more Marguerite saw her son. In the spring of 1814 he suddenly appeared before her in the uniform of a British soldier--claimed her assistance, and adjured her to reveal to him his birth and parentage. His miserable mother evaded his question, besought him to return to the protection of Mr. Braunton, and, promising to write, or to see him again, dismissed him. That visit was the deathblow from which Marguerite never recovered. She died, and, dying, bequeathed to her daughter the legacy of this secret. Having vindicated her mother’s honor, Margaret would now withhold the particulars of her own perseverance and self-denial in the cause of her brother. But her father and her lover were not to be thus put off. Little by little, they drew from the reluctant girl the story of her devotion to her mother’s trust. The ample income, drawn from her mother’s legacy of Plover’s Point, had been regularly sent to Mr. Braunton, to be invested for the benefit of William Dawson; afterward a correspondence was opened with the young man. When subsequently they happened to meet that day on Helmstedt Island, the young man sought to compel, from her lips, the story of his parentage; but Margaret refused to tell him anything, and spoke of her mother only as his patroness. But when he begged to be shown her grave, Margaret consented. They took a boat and went up the river to the family burial ground at Plover’s Point. They returned in the evening--the young soldier to rejoin his comrades--Margaret to rejoin her friends, and to meet suspicions which she had no power to quell.