"I hae something for ye, Roland," continued the old woman, and taking a gold watch from her pocket, she continued, "It is your ain; dinna part with it, my son." Roland examined it, and found inside the case the initials of S.B. It was a handsome article, and Roland's wonder was unbounded. S.B., what could that mean? And how was it that Elsie Gibson, so poor a woman, could afford to give him a watch? "Where did this watch come from?" asked Roland, "and what right have I to such a gift?" "Dinna fash yoursel aboot it, Roland; it is by right your ain, and some day ye'll ken how----. I shall like to hear o' your welfare, my dear bairn." "I thank you, Elsie, for your kindness to us all. God will bless you, I am sure." "May the widow's God be wi' ye, Roland, thro' a' your wanderings in the wilderness," and shaking hands warmly with both the orphans, she vanished from the cemetery. None had ever traced the old woman to her home, if home she had. "Farewell now, Effie," said her brother, as he folded his sister in a warm embrace. She could not speak, but lay on his bosom overpowered with the grief of parting. "Take me home, Roland," said the poor child, and they walked in silence to the gate at Woodcliff. One more embrace in silence, one long, agonized kiss, and Effie turned up the avenue with a heart too full for utterance. Mother, brother, Madeline--all gone. Nothing was left to the desolate orphan but her Father in Heaven. CHAPTER XII. STARS IN THE NIGHT SEASON. Out on the wide, wide world. Roland could not but feel the loneliness, as at the early dawn, with nothing but a few clothes packed up in an old carpet bag, and a few dollars in his pocket, he turned his face away from what had once been home. It had cost him, youth that he was, many an anxious thought and weary hour of toil, to help to keep it up; but it was the dear spot where a mother smiled and a sister cheered his return. He had paid his last visit, fastened the cottage windows, locked the door, and turned to leave the little home. But what is that lying on the front porch? it looks like a familiar object. He stoops to pick it up. It is a little book that his mother daily used, "Clark on the Promises." Many a pencil mark is on its pages, and many a finger print pressed there by a hand that lies mouldering in the grave. He lays it away among his treasures, and turns his footsteps towards the sea-shore. The lonely dashing of the waters at that early hour sounded so drearily, and recalled most forcibly the beautiful lines of Tennyson. "Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, oh sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. "O, well for the fisherman's boy That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay