le to an antiquarian some day, perhaps to some solicitor, or to a
library. I would be glad to sell them to you, for somehow--and I speak
out of my heart, and use no trade language--somehow I want you to buy
them. Would five pounds be too much for the thirty volumes?"

"No, no. There are but few that would want them or give them room. I
will pay you five pounds for them. I will take one volume away, but for
the present you shall keep the others for me."

He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces passed him, but he
saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the
Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he
had found--he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life;
for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his godfather
Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on
the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same
kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life.

He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the
pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the
same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in
his childhood.

What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest,
pure-minded old man!

He started up.

"I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he
obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is
the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was
a finger of Providence in it. I must go back--I must go back."

CHAPTER XXXI.

OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY.

IN his usual serene manner--for he very rarely became excited,
notwithstanding that his conduct and his absentmindedness had surprised
old Humphrey--Mr. Franklin made his way again to the bookstore in the
alley.

Old Humphrey welcomed him with--

"Well, I am glad to see you again, my American patron. Did you find the
volume interesting?"

"Yes, Father Humphrey, that was an interesting book, and there were some
very curious comments in it. The notes on the Conventicles and the
Toleration Act greatly interested me. The man who was the compiler of
that book of pamphlets seems to have been a poet, and to have had
relatives who were advocates of justice. I was struck by many wise
comments that I found in it written in a peculiar hand. Father Humphrey,
who do you suppose made