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216 word. He was found the next morning, bound by strong cords to his bed. He spoke not when he was released, but went in silence to his child's chamber:—the child was gone! Several articles of property were also stolen: the desperate tools the mother had employed worked not perhaps without their own reward.

We need scarcely add, that Brandon set every engine and channel of justice in motion for the discovery of his son. All the especial shrewdness and keenness of his own character, aided by his professional experience, he employed for years in the same pursuit. Every research was wholly in vain: not the remotest vestige towards discovery could be traced, until were found (we have recorded when) some of the articles that had been stolen. Fate treasured in her gloomy womb, altogether undescried by man, the hour and the scene in which the most ardent wish of William Brandon was to be realized.