esolute in his determination to quit the service. He had already,
as he said, passed through a far greater share of adventure than
usually falls to one man's lot; and the colonel's property was so
large that there was not the slightest occasion for him to continue
in the service.

Not long after his return to England, Will paid a visit to Ely
workhouse. He was accompanied by the colonel, and the two men
walked together up to the gate of the workhouse. He rang at the
bell, and a woman opened the door. She curtsied, at seeing two
tall, soldier-like gentlemen before her.

"Your name is Mrs. Dickson, I think?" the younger said.

The woman gave a violent start, and gazed earnestly at him.

"It is Will Gale!" she exclaimed, drawing back a step. "They said
you were dead, years ago."

"No, I am very much alive, Mrs. Dickson; and glad, most glad, to
see an old friend again."

"Good Lord!" the woman exclaimed, "it is the boy himself, sure
enough;" and, for a moment, she seemed as if she would have rushed
into his arms; and then she drew back, abashed at his appearance.

Tom, however, held out his arms; and the woman fell sobbing into
them.

"Why, you did not think so badly of me," he said, "as to think that
I should forget the woman who was a mother to me.

"Father," he said,

"--For I have found my real father, Mrs. Dickson, as you always
said I should, some day--

"It is to this good woman that I owe what I am. But for her, I
might now be a laboring man; but it is to her kindness, to her good
advice, to her lessons, that I owe everything. It was she who
taught me that I should so behave that, if my parents ever found
me, they should have no cause to be ashamed of me. She was, indeed,
as a mother to me; and this lodge was my home, rather than the work
house, inside.

"Ah! And here is Sam!"

Sam Dickson, coming out at this moment, stood in open-mouthed
astonishment, at seeing his wife standing with her hand in that of
a gentleman.

"Oh, Sam! Who do you think this is?"

Sam made no reply, but stared at Tom, with all his eyes.

"If it warn't that he be drowned and dead, long ago," he said, at
last, "I should say it was Will Gale, growed up and got to be a
gentleman. I shouldn't ha' knowed him, at first; but when he
smiles, I don't think as how I can be far wrong."

"You are right, Sam. I am the boy you and your wife were so kind
to, from the time you picked him up, just where we are standing;
and whom you l