coral beads you
have in your hand, which seemed to me at the time to have been left in
order to facilitate a recognition. The appealing look and sweet smile
with which he gazed into my eyes, as if demanding protection, was, in
the condition of my feelings, more than I could withstand, and I took
him home and gave him to my wife. She seemed equally pleased with
myself, and for a time we reared him as a child of our own. Richly has
he repaid our love, and you may well be proud of such a son. But some
ten years afterwards, to our surprise, for we had given up all hope
of such a blessing, Heaven gave us a son, and two years after that
a daughter. The birth of the children altered, in some respects, our
calculations, and I thought it necessary to communicate to Thomas the
fact that he was not my son, but promising that he should ever be to
me as one, and leaving it to be inferred from the identity of name,
for I had given him my own, that he was a relative. He has more than
once endeavored to penetrate the mystery, but I have always shrunk
from revealing it, although determined that at some time or another
he should be made acquainted with it, and with that view, to guard
against the contingencies of sudden death, prepared a narrative of the
events I am relating, which is at this moment in my desk addressed to
him. Mr. Holden," concluded Mr. Pownal, and his voice choked for an
instant, "I can wish you no higher good fortune than that the youth,
who, if not the offspring of my loins, is the son of my affection, may
be to you a source of as much happiness as he has been to me."

Moved to tears the young man threw himself into the arms of his
benefactor, and in broken words murmured his gratitude.

"Ah!" cried he, "you were always so indulgent and so kind, dear sir!
Had it not been for, you, what should I have been to day?"

"Nay, Thomas," said Mr. Pownal, "you have conferred a benefit greater
than you received. You filled a void in hearts that were aching for
an object of parental love, and for years were the solitary beam of
sunshine in a household that would else have been desolate and dark.
And had I not interposed, other means would have been found to restore
you to your proper sphere. There is that in you, my son--let me still
call you by the dear name--that under any circumstances would have
forced its way, and elevated you from darkness into light, from
obscurity into distinction."

Young Pownal cast his eyes upon t