own--he can’t say as I did, any how, and he has no reason to complain of my being an unnat’ral mother to him, and being my foster-child I had a right to love him as I did, and I never wronged him in any way, except in the one article of changing him at nurse, which he being an infant, and never knowing, wa” never a bit the worse for, nor never will, now. So all’s right^ dear, and make your mind asy, jewel; there’s the whole truth of the story, for you.” “But it is a very strange story, Ellinor, after all, and--and I have only your word for it, and may be you are only taking advantage of my regard for you to make me believe you.” “What is it, plase your honour?” said she, stepping forward, as if she did not hear or understand me. “I say, Ellinor, that after all I have no proof of the truth of this story, except your word.” “And is not that enough? and where’s the use of having more? but if it will make you asy, sure I can give you proof--sure need you go farther than the scar on his head? If he was shaved to-morrow, I’d engage you’d see it fast enough. But sure, can’t you put your hand up to your head this minute, and feel there never was no scar there, nor if all the hair you have, God save the mark, was shaved this minute, never a bit of a scar would be to be seen: but proof is it you want?--why, there’s the surgeon that dressed the cut in the child’s head, before he ever came to me; sure he’s the man that can’t forget it, and that will tell all: so to make your mind asy, see him, dear; but for your life don’t let him see your head to feel it, for he’d miss the scar, and might suspect something by your going to question him.” “Where does he live?” interrupted I. “Not above twelve miles off.” “Is he alive?” “Ay, if he been’t dead since Candlemas.” At first I thought of writing to this man; but afterwards, being afraid of committing myself by writing, I went to him: he had long before this time left off business, and had retired to enjoy his fortune in the decline of life. He was a whimsical sort of character; he had some remains of his former taste for anatomy, and was a collector of curiosities. I found him just returned from a lake which he had been dragging for a moose-deer’s horns, to complete the skeleton of a moose-deer, which he had mounted in his hall. I introduced myself, desiring to see his museum, and mentioned to him the thigh-bone of a giant found in ray neighbourhood; then by favour of this bone I introduced the able cure that he had made of a cut in my head, when I was a child. “A cut in your head, sir? Yes, my lord, I recollect perfectly well, it was a very ugly cut, especially in an infant’s head; but I am glad to find you feel no bad effects from it. Have you any cicatrice on the place?--Eleven feet high, did you say? and is the giant’s skeleton in your neighbourhood?”