s Katharine Van Duzer, our old hostess, left to struggle on nearly
alone, at the decline of life, with a poverty that was daily increasing,
years, and this infant grand-daughter. Just before his death, however,
George Wetmore had succeeded in selling a portion of his farm, that which
was least valuable to himself, and with the money he paid off Van Tassel's
mortgage. This was his own account of the matter, and he showed to his
wife Van Tassel's receipt, the money having been paid at the county town,
where the bond and mortgage could not be then produced. This was shortly
before Wetmore's last illness. A twelvemonth after his death, the widow
was advised to demand the bond, and to take the mortgage off record. But
the receipt was not to be found. With a woman's ignorance of such matters,
the widow let this fact leak out; and her subsequent demand for the
release was met with a counter one for evidence of payment. This was the
commencement of Van Tassel's hostile attitude; and things had gone as far
as a foreclosure, and an advertisement for a sale, when the good woman
thus opportunely discovered her son!

Chapter III.

I charge you by the law,
Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,
Proceed to judgment: by my soul I swear
There is no power in the tongue of man
To alter me: I stay here on my bond.

Shylock.

It is not easy to describe the immediate effect of this discovery on
either of the parties most concerned. Not a doubt remained on the mind of
either, after the facts were explained, of the reality of the
relationship; for that was so simply proved, as to place the circumstance
beyond all dispute. Mrs. Wetmore thought of her lost son as of an innocent
smiling babe; and here she found him a red-faced, hard-featured,
weather-beaten tar, already verging towards age, and a man of manners that
were rough, if not rude. She could not at first possess any knowledge of
the better points in his character, and was compelled to receive this boon
from Providence as it was offered. Nevertheless, a mother's love is not
easily dissatisfied, or smothered; and, ere I left the house, I could see
the old woman's eyes fixed on Marble with an expression of interest and
tenderness they had not manifested previously to the revelations.

As for the mate himself, now that the fondest wish of his life was so
unexpectedly gratified, he was taken so much by surprise that he appeared
to think something wa