said Holden, "tell me, thou who hast conferred an obligation
that can never be repaid, and restored as it were the dead to life,
how didst thou become the preserver of my child?"

But a few words are necessary to answer Holden's questions. As the
happy father sat with his arm over his son's neck, Mr. Pownal related
the following particulars.

"The John Johnson, of whom Esther the squaw told you," said Mr.
Pownal, "was some nineteen or twenty years ago a porter in the employ
of our house. He was an honest, industrious man, who remained in our
service until his death, which happened two or three years after the
event I am about to relate, and enjoyed our confidence to the last. It
was in the Spring--the month I do not recollect--when he came to the
counting-room and desired to speak with me in private. He told me that
on the previous evening he had found a child, dressed in rags, asleep
upon the steps of his house, and that to preserve it from perishing he
had taken it in. His own family was large, and he was a poor man, else
he would willingly keep it. He knew not exactly what to do, and as he
was in the habit of consulting me when in any difficulty, he thought
he had better do so now. It was a pretty lively little boy, but so
young that though beginning to speak it was unable to give any account
of itself.

"While Johnson was speaking a plan came into my mind, which I had
thought of before, and it seemed as if the child were providentially
sent in order to enable me to accomplish it. The truth is, that I had
been married for several years, and the merry voice of no child of
my own had gladdened my home and I had given up the expectation of
children. Loving them dearly, it occurred to me to adopt some child,
and rear it as my own. The feelings of Mrs. Pownal were the same
as mine, and we had often talked over the subject together, but
one circumstance and another, I can hardly tell what they were, had
postponed the execution of our purpose from day to day. I therefore
said to Johnson that I would attend him home and see the child, after
which I should be better able to give him advice. Accordingly we
went together to his house, which I recollect was the very one you
described as having visited in your search in William street. There I
found the little waif, a bright eyed boy of some three or four years
of age, though his cheeks were pale and thin, as if he had already
known some suffering. He wore around his neck the