The ground was uneven and rolling where they stood; a hickory-grove lay in the distance, and all along the slope of the hill were knolls covered with winter green and barberry thickets, in which the child soon lost himself. The fire-flies were constantly deluding him, flashing here and there, but never giving themselves to his grasp. He had outrun the voice of his mother, and the stillness frightened him. All at once as he stood listening, a whippoorwill began his night-plaint in the hickory-grove. The boy began to tremble as he heard it, the sound was so near a human lament, that it filled him alike with affright and compassion. Some one was in pain; he was sure that wicked robbers were hurting some lady down in the woods. What could he do? Where was his mother that she did not help the poor creature, whose lament fell so plaintively on the night? The child called aloud for his mother, who had gone wildly in an opposite direction in search of him; and Catharine had blindly followed. Thus every instant increased the distance that separated them. Each interval of silence filled him with fresh terror, and when the bird-wail came, his own wild cry for help rang with it to return upon him without answer. At last shriek after shriek rent the air; but all in vain. Then he sunk to the ground. Lifting his eyes to the stars, and folding his hands palm to palm, he began to say his prayers. They were broken with sobs of grief, for it was difficult for the child to have faith in heaven, when his mother neglected to come. As he knelt upon the turf, sobbing out fragments of the Lord’s Prayer, a light tread came behind him, and he was lifted suddenly from the ground. “Mamma! mamma!” he cried, joyously. But it was not mamma. It was a pale, dark face, that, lighted up with passionate joy, bent over him. The dark eyes, taking that strange brilliancy that nothing but moonlight can give, seemed burning their glances into his. The lips, all in motion, and agitated with broken murmurs, rained kisses upon his face, his arms, his hair, and even upon the folds of his dress. “George!—Georgie, my own Georgie!” “No, no, not yours. I won’t, I won’t!” The little fellow struggled violently in the strange arms that had seized upon him, and his eyes grew wild and large with terror. But the female bore him on, whispering to herself,— “I have found him, I have found him. Let them take all the rest. He is mine, mine!” She raised her voice and sped on, shouting, “Mine, mine!” Her long, iron-gray hair had fallen loose, and floated out upon the wind; a tragic joy sat upon her features, as the moonlight glanced over them; and between her words she laughed a clear, gleeful laugh of defiance, which the whippoorwill answered by his slow wail. The boy grew still. Something in the face of his captor fascinated him. The breath was checked upon his parted lips as she bore him along.