"Nathaniel," said he, his voice already hollow and thrilling, "My hour is come! It is useless to disguise it. I feel and know it to be so, whatever the surgeon may pretend. You need not place your finger upon your lip; I owe to you a duty which I must perform while yet I may. You have often importuned me, and sometimes impatiently, which I did not enough, perhaps, consider to be natural to your situation, but you must forgive me--you have often importuned me upon the subject of your origin. If I had possessed any full or satisfactory knowledge on the subject, you may be sure I would not long have detained it from you. Indeed, I was little less anxious than yourself to place you upon an equal footing in every respect with your associates." Here a smile of inward satisfaction beamed upon his auditor's countenance, unobserved, however, by the speaker, as he continued: "There were some reasons too, connected with the history of my own family, which prevented me from divulging what little I did know of your's. If I have erred, for this too you must forgive me. The wrong shall now be repaired. You have now been a member of my household for fifteen or sixteen years. "One cold and rainy day our sympathies were excited, by seeing an athletic young Irishman in the street, near our door, carrying upon his back a well dressed boy, apparently six or seven years of age. The child was crying most piteously with cold and hunger. We called in the Irishman, and after furnishing him and his little charge with food, inquired whose child it was, and whither he was taking it. He answered, in his own expressive language, that he did not know to whom the child belonged, nor whither he was taking it. That it had been a fellow passenger with him across the ocean, until they were shipwrecked at the mouth of the river, outside of the Capes. That a woman who had two boys near the same age, either of her own, or under her protection, he did not know which, had most earnestly prayed him to take one of them upon his back, as he was preparing to swim to the beach. He did so, and succeeded in landing with his charge in perfect safety. What became of the woman and the other child he never knew, as shortly after the waves broke over the vessel, and she went to pieces. Many of the passengers and crew, however, had been saved and were scattered about through the neighbouring plantations, driven to seek employment by the urgency of their immediate wants. Whether the woman and the child were among the number he could not learn, as those who were saved had necessarily landed at distant points upon the shore. He brought the child to Jamestown in hopes that it would be recognised, and if not, that some humane person would take charge of it. His hopes had thus far proved fruitless, as to the first expectation, but we undertook cheerfully the latter task, and likewise gave employment to the kind-hearted Hibernian. I caused it to be made as generally known through the Colony, as our