Some time after, I saw the associated emigrants pass along the road which led from the township, but Jocelyn was not with them; he was then with Dungowan, and they had gone together by a more sequestered path, which led through the forest in a parallel direction. In consequence of this information, I conducted the boy Evelyn to his grandmother, for I made a point of seeing her regularly every time I had occasion to be at Stockwell. She was in a great measure recovered from her indisposition, but her health was far from being re-established.

On this occasion I found her uncommonly cheerful, greatly so beyond her custom, insomuch that I inquired the cause.

“I begin,” said she, “to think we have done wisely in coming here; the Captain has been telling me to-day, that till recently he had felt as a plant which had been removed, but now he begins to fasten in the soil, all things around are so visibly improving.”

Some other general conversation relative to different topics, of no very important character, then arose, and after a short time I moved to come away, when Dungowan entered.

It was evident, at the first glance, that he was disturbed; and it may be conceived with what surprise both his kinswoman and I heard him say, before he was well seated, that he repented so much of having come to Canada, that he thought it would be as well to return, and spend the remainder of his days at home, adding—

“We live in a world difficult to understand. We fall in with individuals whom we would choose for friends, but they pass, they disappear, and we know them no more. There is more, and also less, of a dramatic construction in the fable of life then we willingly allow. I really fancied we were again at the ripening of a plot, but it has been a vapour.”