The girl had no uttered anguish--she spoke not her sorrows aloud; yet there was that in the wobegone countenance, and the dumb grief, that left no doubt of the deep though suppressed and half-subdued agony of soul within.

She seemed one to whom the worst of life had been long since familiar, and who would not find it difficult herself to die.

She had certainly outlived pride and hope, if not love; and if the latter feeling had its place in her bosom, as without doubt it had, then was it a hopeless lingerer, long after the sunshine and zephyr had gone which first awakened it into bloom and flower.

She knelt beside the inanimate form of her old parent, shedding no tear, and uttering no sigh.

Tears would have poorly expressed the wo which at that moment she felt; and the outlaw, growing impatient of the dumb spectacle, now ventured to approach and interrupt her.