"Hoskins found his mother, a woman nearly a hundred years of age, alive; and a widowed sister living with her, surrounded by a dozen children of all ages. He passed two days with them, and naturally recurred to the changes that had taken place in the neighbourhood. He had at one time had dealings with the steward of Dromore, and had seen my father. When he emigrated, Sir Boyvill had just married. Hoskins asked how it went on with him and his bride. It is our glorious fate to be in the mouths of the vulgar, so he heard the story of my mother's mysterious flight; and, in addition to this, he was told of my boyish wanderings, my search for my mother, and my declaration that I would give two hundred pounds to any one through whose means I should discover her fate. "The words fell at first upon a heedless ear, but the next morning it all at once struck him that he might gain the reward, and he wrote to me; and as I was described as a wanderer without a home, he wrote also to my father. When I saw him in town, he seemed ashamed of the trouble I had taken. 'It is I who am to get the two hundred pounds,' he said, 'not you; the chance was worth wasting a little breath; but you may not think the little I have to tell worth your long journey.' "At length I brought him to the point. At one period, a good many years ago, he was a settler in New-York, and by some chance he fell in with a man lately arrived from England, who asked his advice as to obtaining employment: he had some little money--some few hundred pounds, but he did not wish to sink it in trade or the purchase of land, but to get some situation with a tolerable salary, and keep his little capital at command. A strange way of using money and time in America! but such was the fancy of the stranger; he said he should not be easy unless he could draw out his money at any time, and emigrate at an hour's notice. This man's name was Osborne; he was shrewd, ready-witted, and good-natured, but idle, and even unprincipled. 'He did me a good turn once,' said Hoskins, 'which makes me unwilling to do him a bad one; but you cannot injure him, I think, in America. He has risen in the world since the time I mention, and has an employment under our minister at Mexico. After all, he did not tell me much, and what I learned came out in long talks by degrees, during a journey or two we took together to the West. He had been a traveller, a soldier in the East. Indies, and unlucky everywhere; and it had gone hard with him at one time in Bengal, but for the kindness of a friend. He was a gentleman far above him in station who got him out of trouble, and paid his passage to England; and afterward, when this gentleman returned himself to the island, he found Osborne in trouble again, and again he assisted him. In short, sir, it came out, that if this gentleman (Osborne would never tell his name) stood his friend, it was not for nothing this time. There was a lady to be carried off.