Josiah and Abiah Franklin had had great hopes of little Ben. The boy had a large brain and a tender heart. From their point of view they had trained him well. They had sent him to the Old South Church and had made him the subject of their daily prayers. In fact, these good people had done their best to make him a "steady boy," according to their light. The education of the inner life was like a sealed book to them. But they were yet people upon whom a larger light was breaking. The poor old soap and candle maker went on with his business at the Blue Ball with a heavy heart. "Gone, gone," said Jamie the Scotchman. "He'll find proverbs enough on his way of life. This is a hard world, but he has a heart to return to the right. I pity good Abiah Franklin, but we often have to trust where we can not see." CHAPTER XX. LAUGHED AT AGAIN. FRANKLIN'S first day in Philadelphia is well known to the world. He has related it in Addisonian English, and it has been read almost as widely as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We must give a part of the narrative here in his own language, for a merry girl is about to laugh at the Boston boy as she sees him pass, and he will cause this lovely girl to laugh with him many times in his rising career and in different spirit from that on the occasion when she first beheld him, the awkward and comical-looking boy wandering he knew not where on the street. Let us follow him through his own narrative until he meets the eyes of Deborah Read, a fair lass of eighteen. On his arrival at Philadelphia, he tells us, he was in his working dress; his best clothes were to come by sea. He was covered with dirt; his pockets were filled with shirts and stockings. He was unacquainted with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek for a lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night without sleep, he was extremely hungry, and all his money consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling's worth of coppers, which latter he gave to the boatman for his passage.