Le Vaillant first mentioned it, and then it died away and was not credited; but since that, the reports of various travelers appear to give confirmation to what Le Vaillant asserted.

The paragraph you have now read in the newspaper has again renewed the assertion, and the parties from whom it proceeds are by all accounts worthy of credence.

You may imagine, my dear boy, what a pang it gives me when I read these reports,--when I reflect that my poor girl, who was with that party, may at this moment be alive, may have returned to a state of barbarism,--the seeds of faith long dead in her bosom,--now changed to a wild, untutored savage, knowing no God." "But, my dear uncle, allowing that my aunt is alive, she was not so young at the time of the wreck as to forget entirely what she had been taught." "That is possible; but then her condition must be still more painful, or rather I should say must have been, for probably she is dead long before this, or if not dead, she must be a woman advanced in life; indeed, as you may observe in the account given by the traveler in the paragraph you have read, it speaks only of the _descendants_ of those who were lost in the _Grosvenor_.

The idea of my grandchildren having returned to a state of barbarism is painful enough; I wish it were possible that I could discover the truth, for it is the uncertainty which so much distresses me.

I have but a few years to live, Alexander; I am a very old man, as you know, and may be summoned to-morrow or to-night, for we know not what a day may bring forth.