"That your son, dearest lady," she answered, throwing herself at Mrs. Arbuthnot's feet, "is as truly your own child as ever son born of woman!" That shout of half-fearful triumph seems even now as I write to ring in my ears! I _felt_ that the woman's words were words of truth, but I could not see distinctly: the room whirled round, and the lights danced before my eyes, but I could hear through all the choking ecstasy of the mother, and the fury of the baffled felon. "The letter," continued Mrs. Danby, "which my husband found and opened, would have informed you, sir, of the swiftly approaching death of _my_ child, and that yours had been carefully kept beyond the reach of contagion. The letter you received was written without my knowledge or consent. True it is that, terrified by my husband's threats, and in some measure reconciled to the wicked imposition by knowing that, after all, the right child would be in his right place, I afterward lent myself to Danby's evil purposes. But I chiefly feared for my son, whom I fully believed he would not have scrupled to make away with in revenge for my exposing his profitable fraud. I have sinned; I can hardly hope to be forgiven, but I have now told the sacred truth." All this was uttered by the repentant woman, but at the time it was almost wholly unheard by those most interested in the statement. They only comprehended that they were saved--that the child was theirs in very truth. Great, abundant, but for the moment, bewildering joy! Mr. Arbuthnot--his beautiful young wife--her own true boy (how could she for a moment have doubted that he was her own true boy!--you might read that thought through all her tears, thickly as they fell)--the aged and half-stunned rector, while yet Mrs. Danby was speaking, were exclaiming, sobbing in each other's arms, ay, and praising God too, with broken voices and incoherent words it may be, but certainly with fervent, pious, grateful hearts. When we had time to look about us, it was found that the felon had disappeared--escaped. It was well, perhaps, that he had; better, that he has not been heard of since. PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. From the time of King Solomon downward, laughter has been the subject of pretty general abuse. Even the laughers themselves sometimes vituperate the cachinnation they indulge in, and many of them "Laugh in such a sort, As if they mocked themselves, and scorned the spirit That could be moved to laugh at any thing." The general notion is, that laughter is childish, and unworthy the gravity of adult life. Grown men, we say, have more to do than to laugh; and the wiser sort of them leave such an unseemly contortion of the muscles to babes and blockheads.