Through the long saloon she went, opened her state-room door, he was not there; out on the guards, not there. She asked the stewardess, who had not seen him since dinner. Breathless with agitation, Mrs. Lester rushed upstairs to the hurricane-deck, meeting Mr. Maynard, who had come up the opposite side to look in the pilot-house; the boy was not there! where could he be? Mr. Maynard had looked in the steerage, the barber’s shop; there was no corner of the boat unvisited, and the terrible dread that he had fallen overboard was settling down on his mother’s heart as she sank down on a chair in the saloon, when the stewardess exclaimed, as she opened the door of the state-room, “Here he is, asleep in the upper berth!” And there he was, fast asleep, with two life-preservers, which he had tied around him, and which his mother had mistaken for a gray comforter. Norman, awakened, looked down with some wonder at the group at the door. It was very hot; the sun’s fervent rays were shining upon the state-room, and the life-preservers rather added to the heat, so that Norman had had a pretty warm time. But he had made up by a sound sleep for the late sitting up of the night before, and the early rising at St. Anthony, and he was now quite ready to enjoy the afternoon. Mr. Maynard, greatly relieved that Norman was found, pointed out his house on the high bank of the river at Prescott, and then said good-by, as he was going home. Lake Pepin looked finely, with the “wavy curvature of its guardian hills;” and again the Maiden’s Rock attracted all eyes. Lake City is prettily situated beneath the bluffs on the western bank. A young girl, who there came on the boat, told a sad story. A few days before, a party of merry young people got into a boat, to sail over to Maiden’s Rock. The party was planned to celebrate the birthday of a young girl who, with her sister, and two friends, sisters, on a visit to them, had just returned from school for their vacation. Two young gentlemen and another young lady completed the party. The morning was bright, and the sail charming. There was no cloud in the sky, no shadow on that youthful group. They climbed the Maiden’s Rock, gathered berries like those Indian maidens, and talked of the sad fate of the chief’s daughter; little dreaming that in a few short hours the fate of Oola-Ita was to be theirs, that they, too, were looking for the last time on the waters of Lake Pepin!