nd gratitude, was so
delighted with the man who had rolled her in a blanket and sent her to
her beloved mother, as she still called her, that she promised to make
him butler at Eastleys, and keep him comfortable all his days.

"Now," said the cautious agent, "this promise of Henney's is not made in
consideration of your giving evidence for her before the commissioner."

"I'm thinking of nothing but her face," said John. "I could swear to it
out of a thousand; and Heaven bless her! for I think I am again in the
once happy house in Meggat's Land."

And John pretended he was wiping a morsel of egg from his mouth, while
the handkerchief was extended as far as the eye.

"A terrible night that was," he continued. "Mrs. Napier had been in
labour all day; and when Mrs. Kemp told me to tell my master that my
lady had been delivered of TWINS--"

"_Twins_!" cried they all, as if moved by some sympathetic chord which
ran from heart to heart.

"Ay, twins," he repeated; "one dead, and another living--even you
yourself, Henney, who are as like your father as if there never had been
a Captain Preston in the world."

And thus was John Cowie precognosced. We need not say that he was that
very day examined before the commissioner. He gave an account of all the
proceedings of the house in Meggat's Land on the eventful night to which
we have referred. The case was no longer a puzzle; and accordingly a
decision was given in favour of Henrietta, whereby we have one other
example of truth and right emerging from darkness into light. Some time
afterwards, the heiress, with Mrs. Hislop alongside, and John Cowie on
the driver's box, proceeded to Eastleys and took possession; where
Henrietta acted the part of a generous lady, Mrs. Hislop that of a kind
of a dowager, and John was once more butler in the house of the Napiers.
We stop here. Those who feel interest enough in the fortunes of Henney
to inquire when and whom she married, and what were the subsequent
fortunes of a life so strangely begun, will do well to go to Eastleys.

THE ORPHAN.

About forty years ago, a post-chaise was a sight more novel in the
little hamlet of Thorndean, than silk gowns in country churches during
the maidenhood of our great-grandmothers; and, as one drew up at the
only public-house in the village, the inhabitants, old and young,
startled by the unusual and merry sound of its wheels, hurried to the
street. The landlady, on the first notice of its ap