"There are just four, besides myself,—young people. I found them where they had been long living, on a lonely lake, and I persuaded them to come with me."
The strong features of the Highlander worked convulsively, as he drew his faded blue bonnet over his eyes. "Jacob, did ye ken that we lost our eldest bairns some three summers since?" he faltered in a broken voice.
"The Lord, in his mercy, has restored them to you, Donald, by my hand," said the trapper.
"Let me see, let me see my children! To Him be the praise and the glory," ejaculated the pious father, raising his bonnet reverently from his head; "and holy and blessed be His name for ever! I thought not to have seen this day. O Catharine, my dear wife, this joy will kill you!"
In a moment his children were enfolded in his arms. It is a mistaken idea that joy kills; it is a life restorer. Could you, my young readers, have seen how quickly the bloom of health began to reappear on the faded cheek of that pale mother, and how soon that dim eye regained its bright sparkle, you would have said joy does not kill.
"But where is Louis, dear Louis, our nephew, where is he?"
Louis, whose impetuosity was not to be restrained by the caution of old Jacob, had cleared the log-fence at a bound, had hastily embraced his cousins Kenneth and Donald, and in five minutes more had rushed into his father's cottage, and wept his joy in the arms of father, mother, and sisters by turns, before old Jacob had introduced the impatient Hector and Catharine to their father.
"But while joy is in our little dwelling, who is this that sits apart upon that stone by the log-fence, her face bent sadly down upon her knees, her long raven hair shading her features as with a veil?" asked the Highlander Maxwell, pointing as he spoke to the spot where, unnoticed and unsharing in the joyful recognition, sat the poor Indian girl. There was no paternal embrace for her, no tender mother's kiss imprinted on that dusky cheek and pensive brow; she was alone and desolate in the midst of that scene of gladness.
"It is my Indian sister," said Catharine; "she also must be your child."
Hector hurried to Indiana, and taking her by the hand led her to his parents, and bade them be kind to and cherish the young stranger, to whom they all owed so much.