Barachiah and me,--and how could I have loved a child of my own better than I do love this poor bairn? But I was thinking about what I must do for him before he leaves me,--for he's long talked o' seeing the world when he was out of his time;--and, I make no doubt, he'll want to be off to-morrow, as soon as noontide makes him free. I must say a few words to him about it, to-night,--and yet, I feel so chicken-hearted about his going, that I hardly know how to speak to him." The good dame's irregular soliloquy was put an end to by the voices of her younger apprentices, who were drawing homewards for the night. Her foster-son soon afterwards made his appearance,--book in hand, as usual, at the end of his evening's walk at the conclusion of labour. The supper-table was spread,--the meal ended,--and Joe and the aged dame were speedily left the sole occupants of the little kitchen. Joe had retaken up his book, and had been buried for more than half-an-hour in deep attention to its contents,--the hour was growing late;--and Dame Deborah, after many inward struggles, began, in a very tremulous tone, to address her foster-child on the most important theme in her recent soliloquy. "Joe," said she, "I was thinking, since you will be of age, and a freeman, to-morrow----" and there her emotion compelled her to hesitate; but although Joe had laid down his book to attend to his aged protectress, he felt too much agitated to take up the observation where the dame had left it. "I reckon you are in the same mind about leaving me, Joe," resumed the aged woman, trembling with extreme feeling, and uttering the sentence with a cadence that sounded like the key-note of desolation;--"but I wish you to say what you are intending to do when I give you your indentures, to-morrow at noon." "My kind mother,--for a true mother you have been to me," replied the youth, forcibly subduing his feelings, and addressing Dame Deborah with a degree of animation and a fervency of look she had seldom witnessed in him,--"it is high time I became acquainted with the world. Believe me,--I do not desire to leave you through ingratitude for your unremitted kindness to a poor orphan,--but I feel I am fitted for other scenes than these. More than all, man is the great book I wish to read; and the few humble pages of his history which lie around me here I have turned over, till I am weary of the writing. I shall be useless to you if I remain, for I shall never be content, or at rest. I go from you, for a season; but never, never, dear mother, shall I cease to think of you!" Joe bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands, in deep emotion; and the dame, moved utterly beyond self-possession, arose with trembling haste, and clasping her foster-child in her aged arms, kissed his fair forehead, while the unwonted tears trickled down her furrowed cheeks.