Here our companion brought his story to an end, and leaning forward rested his face in his hands, as if consumed by the sad thoughts the recollection called forth. Waiting a while, Uncle Job spoke up, but with voice so low and broken as to be scarce audible: "You used a name just now that is dear to us beyond speaking. Perhaps you remember Mr. Holmes’ other name?" "Yes, Charles; and his wife’s name was Margaret," he answered without moving. Hearing this, Uncle Job turned toward me and held up his hand as if in warning, but I overcome by what I had heard, burst into a paroxysm of tears, crying out: "Father! Mother!" At this outburst our companion raised his head, his look of melancholy giving place to one of surprise. Thus he continued to regard me for some time, until at last, understanding the meaning of what I said, he reached forward in tender pity, and lifting me up pressed me against his heart. Releasing me after a while, he took my hand, and leaning forward, looked in my face as one might gaze into the face of a friend long mourned as lost. "Yes, the same; his mother’s face and eyes, and something of his father’s look, too," he murmured, as if talking to himself. "How strange that in the shadow of this hill I should meet their child. Gone; I thought never to see them again, but here they look out on me as before." Overcome, I made no answer, and thus we went on in silence until our little party having in some measure regained its former composure, the gentleman, taking my hand, spoke up again: "Tell me, my son, where you live, your home, if you do not mind." "I’m going to live with Uncle Job," I answered; "but where, I do not know." "I asked, thinking some time to be of service to you. Who knows: It would not be more strange than our meeting here; but this I want to ask of you, my child, that you will treasure the thought that I want to serve you: and that you may always know where I am and how to reach me, take this," and tearing a leaf from a worn book he took from his pocket, he wrote thereon his name and handed it to me; and I looking, read: [Illustration: A. Lincoln, Springfield, Ills] This precious paper I still have and treasure, and shall transmit to my children, as one might the relic of a saint or the memory of an event in which love mingles and grows stronger with the lapse of time. NOTE.—Mr. Lincoln at the time of which Gilbert Holmes speaks was in his twenty-ninth year, but already bore in his drawn face the look of melancholy habitual to it in later life. This, as if forecasting in some way the doom that was finally to overtake him in the height of his career; but not, indeed, until his task was done and his country saved through his great wisdom and patriotic effort.—THE AUTHOR. *CHAPTER XIV* *THE HIGHWAYMAN*