t is because you do feel it so much that I have come to tell
you that you have been deceived. Your son was not hanged."

"Not hanged! Why, Jack, are you sure?"

"Yes, mother, quite sure."

"Not hanged, quite sure--"

Here old Nanny burst out into a wild laugh, which ended in sobbing and
tears. I was obliged to wait some minutes before she was composed enough
to listen to me; at last I said, "Mother, I have more to say, and there
is no time to be lost."

"Why no time to be lost, my dear boy?" said she. "Oh! now that you have
told me this, I could dwell for hours--ay, days--more. I shall dwell my
whole life upon this kind news."

"But listen to me, mother, for I must tell you how I discovered this."

"Yes, yes, Jack--do, that's a good boy. I am quite calm now," said
Nanny, wiping her eyes with her apron.

I then acquainted her with what Spicer had told me relative to his
inducing the man to take his name, and continued the history of Spicer's
life until I left him on board of a man-of-war.

"But where is he now? And who told you all this?"

"He told me so himself," replied I. "He has been in the hospital some
time, and living here close to you, without either of you being aware of
it. But, mother, he is now ill--very ill in the hospital; he would not
have confessed all this if he had not felt how ill he was."

"Deary, deary me!" replied old Nanny, wringing her hands; "I must go see
him."

"Nay, mother, I fear you cannot. The fact is that he is dying, and he
has sent me to ask your forgiveness for his conduct to you."

"Deary, deary me!" continued old Nanny, seemingly half out of her wits;
"in the hospital, so near to his poor mother--and dying. Dear Jemmy!"

Then the old woman covered up her face with her apron and was silent. I
waited a minute or two, and then I again spoke to her.

"Will you not answer my question, mother? Your son has but an hour
perhaps to live, and he dies penitent not only for his conduct to you,
but for his lawless and wicked life; but he feels his treatment of you
to be worse than all his other crimes, and he has sent me to beg that
you will forgive him before he dies. Answer me, mother."

"Jack," said Nanny, removing the apron from her face, "I feel as if it
was I who ought to ask his pardon, and not he who should ask mine. Who
made him bad?--his foolish mother. Who made him unable to control his
passions?--his foolish mother. Who was the cause of his plunging into
vice--of his