sights of sad sorrow. Families making their
way to distant and wild localities, plundered
by the inhuman squatters, or by the Indians,
and others seized by the still more merciless
swamp fever, perishing without help, and often
all alone in the wilderness.

"Ah! I remember now one case—it is
nearly twenty years ago, but I never can
forget it. It was a young, thin man—he could
scarcely be twenty. He had been left by his
party in the last stage of fever. They had
raised a slight booth of green bushes over
him, and placed a pumpkin-shell of water by
his side, and a broken tea-cup to help himself
with; but he was too weak, and was fast
sinking there all alone in that vast wilderness.
The paleness of death appeared in his sunken
features, the feebleness of death in his wasted
limbs. He was a youth who, like many
others, had left his friends in Europe, and
now longed to let them know his end. He
summoned his failing powers to give me a
sacred message. He mentioned the place
whence he last came."

"Where was it?" exclaimed the old man,
in a tone of wild excitement. "Where—what
was it? It must be my Sam!"

"No, that could not be," said the stranger,
startled by the old man's emotion; "it was
not this place—it was—I remember it—it was
another name—Well—Well—Welland was
the place."

The old man gave a cry, and would have
fallen from his chair, but the stranger sprung
forward and caught him in his arms. There
was a moment's silence, broken only by a
deep groan from the old man, and a low murmur
from his lips—"Yes! I knew it—he
is dead!"

"No, no! he is not dead!" cried the
stranger—"he lives; he recovered!"

"Where is he then?—Where is my Sam?—
let me know!" —cried the old man, recovering
and standing wildly up—"I must see him!
I must to him!"

"Father!—father!—it is Sam!"—cried
his son Joe—"I know him!—I know him!
—this is he!"

"Where?—who?" exclaimed the father,
looking round bewildered.

"Here!" said the stranger, kneeling before
the old man, and clasping his hand, and
bathing it with tears. "Here, father, is your
lost and unworthy son. Father!—I return
like the Prodigal Son. 'I have sinned before
Heaven and in thy sight, make me as one of
thy hired servants.'"

The old man clasped his son in his arms,
and they wept in silence.

But Joe was impatient to embrace his
recovered brother, and he gave him a hug as
vigorous as one of those grisly bears that
Sam had mentioned. "Ah! Sam!"—he said
"how I have wanted thee, but I always saw
thee a slim chap, such as thou went away—
and now thou art twice as big, and twice as
old, and yet I knew thee by thy eyes."

The two brothers cordially embraced, and
the returned wanderer also embraced his
comely sister affectionately, and said, "You
had nearly found me out in the garden."

"Ah, what a startle you gave me!" she
replied, wiping away her tears, "but this is
so unexpected, so heavenly." She ran off,
and returning with the whole troop of her
children, said, "There, there is your dear,
lost uncle!"

The uncle caught them up, one after
another, and kissed them rapturously.

"Do you know," said the mother, laying
her hand on the head of the eldest boy, a fine,
rosy-looking fellow, "what name this has?
It is Samuel Warilow! We did not forget
the one that was away."

"He will find another Samuel in America,"
said his uncle, again snatching him up, "and
a Joe, and a Thomas, the grandfather's name.
My blessed mother there lives again in a
lovely blue-eyed girl; and should God send
me another daughter, there shall be a
Millicent, too!"

Meantime the old man stood gazing
insatiably on his son. "Ah, Sam!" said he,
as his son again turned, and took his hand,
"I was very hard to thee, and yet thou hast
been hard to us too. Thou art married, too,
and, with all our names grafted on new stems,
thou never wrote to us. It was not well."

"No, father, it was not well. I acknowledge
my fault—my great fault; but let me
justify myself. I never forgot you; but
for many years I was a wanderer, and an
unsuccessful man. My pride would not let
me send under these circumstances to those
who had always said that I should come to
beggary and shame. Excuse me, that I
mention these hard words. My pride was always
great; and those words haunted me.

"But at length, when Providence had
blessed me greatly, I could endure it no
longer. I determined to come and seek
forgiveness and reconciliation; and, God be
praised! I have found both. We will away
home together, father. I have wealth beyond
all my wants and wishes; my greatest joy
will be to bestow some of it on you. My
early profession of a surveyor gave me great
opportunities of perceiving where the tide of
population would direct itself, and property
consequently rise rapidly in value. I therefore
purchased vast tracts for small sums,
which are now thickly peopled, and my
possessions are immense. I am a member of
Congress."

The next day, the two brothers
drove over to Bakewell, where Joe had the
satisfaction to see the whole arrears paid
down to the astonished steward, on condition
that he gave an instant release from the farm;
and Joe ordered, at the auctioneer's, large
posters to be placarded in all the towns and
villages of the Peak, and advertisements to
be inserted in all the principal papers of the
Midland Counties, of the sale of his stock
that day fortnight.