Deborah ceased, as it seemed, disabled by the fullness of her heart, from prolonging her narrative. Joe had not only listened to her revelation with the profoundest attention, but felt an irresistible awe under the recital. Deborah had never risen so much above her ordinary self, in his eyes, as while she was thus unbosoming a secret she had kept for years. Her attitude, and the expression of her features, her tone of voice, and the very words in which she conveyed her solemn story, indicated an unusual frame of mind, and formed a combined and undeniable proof that the utterer of such unearthly news was as fully persuaded, as of her own existence, that she was delivering truths. Joe's strong affection for his aged protectress, and his reverence for her sterling uprightness, contributed to fix his mind more absorbingly on what he heard. The relation of the apparition of Barachiah Thrumpkinson, although authenticated solely by this solemn averment of his aged relict, thus made a stronger impression on the faith of the youthful listener than any former narrative of the supernatural, written or oral. The united reasonings of five years seemed to be shaken to atoms; and Joe remained answerless, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Nor had his reasoning faculty re-asserted its dominion, ere the aged dame rose, and looking parentally upon him, while she uttered her usual evening farewell, "Good night, bairn!" took the way to her rustic couch. Joe returned the salutation with a faltering voice, and hasted, likewise, to seek his place of repose; but sleep was long ere it visited his eyes, even when he had overcome, in some degree, the strange over-awed feeling which had crept over him while listening to Deborah's story. Amid the solemn stillness of the night, Memory ran through her beaten paths, and Imagination arose, and mingled therewith the scenes of the future. The great event of to-morrow,--the greatest, hitherto, in the life of the humble shoemaker's apprentice,--soon dissipated all other excitements. Would he be happier when he was free, and had entered the world, as a personal observer, instead of learning its varied character from books? Something whispered a doubt. But would he not be wiser? Yes; that, he thought, was certain. He would be able, by the practice of close observation, to compare men with each other: he would have the opportunity of trying, as upon a touch-stone, the truth or fallacy of the peculiar hypotheses he had framed: he would learn to read the human heart. And then he thought of the probability, nay, certainty, of his finding some kindred mind, but farther advanced in great truths, that would be able to set him right where he was wrong; who would teach him the true secret of perfecting his moral nature, and would lead him on to the acquirement of intellectual stores, of the very existence of which, it might be that he had scarcely a faint conception,--thoughts that enfevered him with pleasurable anticipation.