of removing the awkwardness of excessive
sensibility, I pursued the discourse.

"We were talking of your true name, Moses, as you came in," I said. "It
will never do for you to hail by one name, while your mother hails by
another. You'll have to cut adrift from Moses Marble altogether."

"If I do, may I be----"

"Hush, hush--you forget where you are, and in whose presence you stand."

"I hope my son will soon learn that he is always in the presence of his
God," observed the mother, plaintively.

"Ay, ay--that's all right, mother, and you shall do with me just what you
please in any of them matters; but as for not being Moses Marble, you
might as well ask me not to be myself. I should be another man, to change
my name. A fellow might as well go without clothes, as go without a name;
and mine came so hard, I don't like to part with it. No, no--had it come
to pass, now, that my parents had been a king and a queen, and that I was
to succeed 'em on the throne, I should reign as King Moses Marble, or not
reign at all."

"You'll think better of this, and take out a new register under your
lawful designation."

"I'll tell you what I'll do, mother, and that will satisfy all parties.
I'll bend on the old name to the new one, and sail under both."

"I care not how you are called, my son, so long as no one has need to
blush for the name you bear. This gentleman tells me you are an honest and
true-hearted man; and those are blessings for which I shall never cease
to thank God."

"Miles has been singing my praises, has he! I can tell you, mother, you
had need look out for Miles's tongue Natur' intended him for a lawyer, and
it's mere accident his being a sailor, though a capital one he is. But
what may be my name, according to law?"

"Oloff Van Duser Wetmore Moses Marble, according to your own expedient of
sailing under all your titles. You can ring the changes, however, and call
yourself Moses Oloff Marble Van Duser Wetmore, if you like that better."

Moses laughed, and as I saw that both he and his new-found mother were in
a fit state to be left together, and that the sun now wanted but an hour
or two of setting, I rose to take my leave.

"You will remain with your mother to-night, Marble," I observed. "I will
keep the sloop at an anchor until I can see you in the morning, when we
will settle the future a little more deliberately."

"I should not like to lose my son so soon after finding him," the old
woman anxiousl