"Can you let me stay a few days with you, uncle Peter?" "Why, yes, boy; but ours is a poor place; we can't do much for you." "It will be well enough. I shall only be here for a few days." Roland rambled around among the old familiar scenes, and towards evening, returned to the sea-shore. Seating himself upon the rock where he had passed so many happy days, he gazed out upon the wide ocean. The music of its waves was sad, depressing. It spoke of the past; for the future it had no voice. As he mused, a log of drift-wood floated by. How solitary it seemed! All alone! floating on the wide ocean, drifting whither the tide would wash it up at last. "Is that like me?" thought Roland. "Am I so lonely in this wide world? Am I such a creature of chance?" No human voice was near to answer the question of his soul. The night birds sang their melancholy song around him, and it was an hour of deep sadness. "Why should I indulge in such a train of thought?" inquired Roland of his heart. "This is the language of despondency, almost of despair. Am I indeed nothing but driftwood?--so useless, so solitary!" Looking upward, the bright fair moon was sailing overhead so serene! so pure! so silent! With her voiceless majesty she answered, and the mother's dying whispers came like sweet music to banish the language of despair: "'Looking aloft, Roland!' 'Looking aloft!' I will not be the drift-wood of human life. I will seek to fit myself for my place on this great globe, and, obedient to my Maker's laws as is that placid moon, I shall with his blessing move on as surely to my destiny; happy to serve my God here, and enjoy the fulness of His presence hereafter. Float on, thou worthless log! thou shalt not symbolize my fate! Sail on, thou placid moon! Let my course in life be steady, calm, obedient, as thine." The voice within quickened his pace as he walked up and down the beach, repeating the Psalm of Life: "Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; 'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,' Was not spoken of the soul," &c. &c. Turning his steps towards Uncle Peter's cabin, he slept the quiet sleep of recovered trust and confidence in God. Next evening he sought his mother's grave. How soothing were the words upon that marble head-stone! "She sleeps in Jesus." And how sweetly did they speak of the dear little friend that placed them there! He had not been seated long before Elsie Gibson made her appearance. She seemed delighted to meet Roland again. "Weel, Roland, the days o' youth are passing away, a'maist a mon. Ye're the vera image o' ane I luve weel; may ye be a happier mon than he." "Whom do you mean, Elsie?"