He left the store. It was a bright day. Happy faces passed him, but he saw them not. He walked, indeed, the streets of London, but it was the Boston of his childhood that was with him now. He wondered at what he had found--he wondered if there were mysterious influences behind life; for he was certain that these pamphlets were those that his godfather Uncle Benjamin had so valued as a part of himself, and that the notes on the margin of the leaves were in the handwriting of the same kind-hearted man whose influence had so molded his young life. He went to his apartments, and sat down at his table and read the pamphlet and the notes. He found in the notes the very thoughts and the same expressions of thought that he had received from Uncle Benjamin in his childhood. What a life had been his, and how much he owed to this honest, pure-minded old man! He started up. "I must go back to Father Humphrey," he said, "and find of whom he obtained these books. If these are Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets, this is the strangest incident in all my life; it would look as though there was a finger of Providence in it. I must go back--I must go back." CHAPTER XXXI. OLD HUMPHREY'S STRANGE STORY. IN his usual serene manner--for he very rarely became excited, notwithstanding that his conduct and his absentmindedness had surprised old Humphrey--Mr. Franklin made his way again to the bookstore in the alley. Old Humphrey welcomed him with-- "Well, I am glad to see you again, my American patron. Did you find the volume interesting?" "Yes, Father Humphrey, that was an interesting book, and there were some very curious comments in it. The notes on the Conventicles and the Toleration Act greatly interested me. The man who was the compiler of that book of pamphlets seems to have been a poet, and to have had relatives who were advocates of justice. I was struck by many wise comments that I found in it written in a peculiar hand. Father Humphrey, who do you suppose made those notes? Where did you find those pamphlets? How did they come to you?" "Well, that would be hard to say. Those volumes of pamphlets have been in the store many years, and I have often tried to find a purchaser for them. They must have come down from the times of the Restoration. I wouldn't wonder if they were as old as Cromwell's day. There is much about Banbury in them, and old Lord Halifax." "Old Lord Halifax!" said Franklin in surprise, walking about with a far-away look in his face again and his hands behind him. "I did not find that name in the volume that I took home. I had an uncle who received favors from old Lord Halifax." "You did, hey? Where did he live?" "In Ecton, or in Nottingham." "Now, that is curious. It may be that he made the library of pamphlets." "No, no; if he had, he would never have sold them. He was a well-to-do man. But you have not answered my questions as to how the library of pamphlets came to you."