The short day faded into the long night. Icy gusts drove down from the heights of Craig Ronald, and the wind moaned mysteriously over the ridges which separated the valley of the Cree Water from the remote fastnesses of Loch Grannoch. The minister gathered his scanty family at the "buik," and his prayer was full of a fine reverence and feeling pity. He was pleading in the midst of a wilderness of silence, for the deaf woman heard not a word.
Yet it will do us no harm to hearken to the prayer of yearning and wrestling.
"O my God, who wast the God of my forefathers, keep Thou my two bairns. They are gone from under my roof, but they are under Thine. Through the storm and the darkness be Thou about them. Let Thy light be in their hearts. Though here we meet no more, may we meet an unbroken
