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“That is thy dwelling, I believe,” said the Quaker, looking around at a house adjoining the one before which they stood.

“Yes, that is my house,” returned Crawford.

“Will thee take this little boy in with thee, and keep him for a few minutes, while I go to see a friend some squares off?”

“Oh, certainly. Come with me, dear!” And Mr. Crawford held out his hand to the child, who took it without hesitation.

“I will see thee in a little while,” said the Quaker, as he turned away.

The boy, who was plainly, but very neatly dressed, was about four years old. He had a more than usually attractive face; and an earnest look out of his mild eyes, that made every one who saw him his friend.

“What is your name, my dear?” asked Mr. Crawford, as he sat down in his parlor, and took the little fellow upon his knee.

“Henry,” replied the child. He spoke with distinctness; and, as he spoke, there was a sweet expression of the lips and eyes, that was particularly winning.

“It is Henry, is it?”

“Yes, sir,”

“What else besides Henry?”

The boy did not reply, for he had fixed his eyes upon a picture that hung over the mantle, and was looking at it intently. The eyes of Mr. Crawford followed those of the child, that rested, he found, on the portrait of his daughter.

“What else besides, Henry?” he repeated.

“Henry Logan,” replied the child, looking for a moment into the face of Mr. Crawford, and then turning to gaze at the picture on the wall. Every nerve quivered in the frame of that man of iron will. The falling of a bolt from a sunny sky could not have startled and surprised him more. He saw in the face of the child, the moment be looked at him, something strangely familiar and attractive. What it was, he did not, until this instant, comprehend. But it was no longer a mystery.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, in a subdued voice, after he had recovered, to some extent, his feelings.

The child looked again into his face, but longer and more earnestly. Then, without answering, he turned and looked at the portrait on the wall.

“Do you know who I am, dear?” repeated Mr. Crawford.

“No, sir,” replied the child; and then again turned to gaze upon the picture.

“Who is that?” and Mr. Crawford pointed to the object that so fixed the little boy’s attention.

“My mother.” And as he said these words, he laid his head down upon the bosom of his unknown relative, and shrunk close to him, as if half afraid because of the mystery that, in his infantile mind, hung around the picture on the wall.

Moved by an impulse that he could not restrain, Mr. Crawford drew his arms around the child and hugged him to his bosom. Pride gave way; the iron will was bent; the sternly uttered vow was forgotten. There is power for good in the presence of a little child. Its sphere of innocence subdues and renders impotent the evil spirits that rule in the hearts of selfish men. It was so in this case. Mr. Crawford might have withstood the moving appeal of even his daughter’s presence, changed by grief, labor, and suffering, as she was. But his anger, upon which he had suffered the sun to go down, fled before her artless, confiding, innocent child. He thought not of Fanny–as the wilful woman, acting from the dictate of her own passions or feelings; but as a little child, lying upon his bosom–as a little child, singing and dancing around him–as a little child, with, to him, the face of a cherub; and the sainted mother of that innocent one by her side.

When the Friend came for the little boy; Mr. Crawford said to him, in a low voice–made low to hide his emotion–

“I will keep the child.”

“From its mother?”

“No. Bring the mother, and the other child. I have room for them all.”