My dear son," said the Pastor, who was also now nearly overwhelmed with anguish, "be comforted-look upwards!" he pointed to the orb of day shining in the sky; "the Sun of Righteousness smiles upon us in our affliction! Be comforted; this morning air is reviving to our bodies, and the influence of the Eternal Spirit shall, in like manner, revive our drooping minds! Do not sink, my dear son; but rather support me, whom age and previous bereavements have robbed of that mental elasticity which youth possesses. I am in the autumn of my days-you are in the spring. All that is before me in this world is cheerless, and barren, but you have a thousand temporal pleasures in store for you."

"I had but one sister," said Arthur; "she is gonewhere shall I look for another?"

The Pastor said no more, his own heart was quite cast down. The procession did not return to the lodge in the order in which it had left it. The elders of the Pastor's little flock came around him, and he walked first by the side of one, and then of another, leaving Arthur to give his arm to Jane, in the rear of the com

pany.

"Now Jane, we have parted from Lucy indeed!" said Arthur; "while her dear body was in the house, she did not seem wholly gone from us, but now—”

He was checked by his tears; Jane, who also wept, was unable to speak a word to him, but she lig! tlv pressed with her hand the arm on which it rested, as a token that she shared his grief.

Breakfast had been prepared for the mourners in the large sitting room. Eggs, pork, ham-rashers, potatoes, and strong tea, appeared on the table; and cakes, made

of tempered Indian corn, baked on slanted boards before the fire, (a very ancient method) were being brought in, as the company entered. Jane went below in the kitchen, after having taken off her bonnet and gloves.

Her first step inside the kitchen door was arrested in its advance, as a thrilling fear crept over her frame, strangely mixed with affection and delight. The mariner was standing by the hearth, on which Indian cakes were warming. His back was toward her, but she could not fail to recognise in that commanding figure, the person of her father!

The opening of the door caused him to turn his head slightly, and he saw her. The next minute she had sprang to his breast, and was folded, with nothing less than passionate fondness, to her parent's heart.

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"My Jenny-my Jenny!" said he, kissing her face and forehead; "I have walked thirty or forty miles from the ship to seek you. I heard you were somewhere in this district, and I could no longer be without my darling. You must go back with me, you must—you must indeed, Jenny!"

She made no answer, but her forehead sank on his shoulder, and she wept sadly. He spoke to her in a most gentle and soothing manner, and sitting down, placed her on his knee, and drew her arm around his neck.

"You know," said he, "my Jenny, your mother is dead, and I know not at all what has become of your brother. You should not desert me, therefore, altogether, bad as I am, for I have no one but you to care any thing about me, and to guide me."

"My own dear father!" said Jane, " much do I wish,

you know I do, that we could live together-and why may we not? Only give up that dreadful trade of piracy, and I will never part from you, but by your own wish and consent.”

"Conditions-conditions, Jenny!" said the Pirate, with an air of dignified reproach. "You must not forget I have an authority wherewith to command, as well as an affection with which to entreat. Tell me, if I have ever been rough to you, if I have ever given you cause to complain of ill-usage?"

Never," she answered; "you were always kind to me."

During this meeting, which was at once affecting and painful, no one but themselves had been in the kitchen. But, as steps were presently heard approaching, Jane hastily drew her arm from her father's neck, and arose from his knee.

"Not a word Jenny, to any one, of who I am, or I am destroyed," he whispered in her ear; and Jane, reluctantly resorting to artifice, pretended to be engaged in examining the cakes on the hearth. The feint succeeded. Deborah, who entered, had no suspicion that in the mariner, Jane had found the individual from whom she had derived existence.

"If you plase, Miss Anderson, his honour the Pastor, and Mr. Arthur, wish that you would come to the breakfast," said Deborah.

Jane accordingly went, and joined the breakfast party, and a mournful party it was! Arthur noticed her peculiar tremour as she placed herself in the seat which had been Lucy's, in order to make, and pour the tea. Naturally attributing it to the agitating ceremony in which

she had been engaged, and to regret for Lucy, he spoke to her with tenderness, and took the cup which was shaking in her hand from her, replacing it upon the tray. Presently she rallied, and performed her office with tolerable composure, while he relapsed into the allengrossing sorrow, which, at times, wrapped him in a sort of insensibility.

The Pastor said nothing until the conclusion of the repast, but it was too evident that he was suffering intensely the whole of the time, for the tears were momently falling fast and large from his eyes, and he sighed continually.

When the table was cleared, he went through the family morning devotions with difficulty, and frequently he was compelled to stop to wipe away, with his shaking hand, the superabundant moisture which impeded his sight.

CHAPTER X.

"A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday."

"Now," said Clinton inwardly, in the evening, as he folded a letter on the kitchen table, and addressed it to Mr. Lee," it is done; and the twelfth hour from this may see me senseless as a clod of the valley. Deborah, be so good as put that into Mr. Lee's hand, and let no other person see it or look at it."

"Is it I that would show it to any other person?" said Deborah; "I wonder who I'd show it to? Sure and I can carry a litter to its right owner, and make no mistake." She flung her head a little as she spoke, and Clinton, who was not fully aware of the curiously twisted notions of right and wrong which some of the Irish people are gifted with, said to her, conciliatingly

"Pray be not offended, Debby. I assure you I had no intention of wounding your feelings. The letter is very important, and very private, or I should not cn any account have said the words which have sounded so. unpleasantly to you."

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Unplisintly! Och, then, you say the truth, Mr.