"My father started at the words, for he thought of that which he well remembered having placed in his lost pocket-book!"
"'Where did your mother get one like this? How long has she had it?' he cried eagerly."
"'I don't know where she got it,' replied the child, looking down. 'I think that she has had it about a week; she laughed when she began to read it, but, before she had done, she was crying as I never saw her cry before.'"
"After the lesson was over, and my father had received the oft-repeated farewells and good wishes of his pupils, not unmixed with tears, which went warmer to his heart than all the praises of man could have done, he laid his hand on the arm of the barefooted boy, and gently drew him along with him down the steep staircase, until they stood together in the street."
"'I should like to see your mother,' he said to the boy."
"'She lives quite near, just round the corner; I will take you to her if you wish it,' replied the child."
"'Am I foolish to indulge this strange hope?' thought my father, as he followed his little guide. 'But nowhere else have I seen any books like my three, and it may be that the Almighty has granted me a clue by which to find out the lost property of my master, and clear my own character from suspicion.'"
"With a heart beating faster than usual, my father was led by the boy to a neighbouring house, as low and dirty as the one which they had just quitted. They ascended to a room upon the second floor, where a woman sat alone, engaged in reading. At the first glance my father recognised the book which she held in her hand. It is that, Walter, which you now see in the possession of his son."
"The exclamation which he uttered startled the woman; she turned round hastily with an expression of fear on her face—the book dropped from her hand as, gazing wildly on my father, she exclaimed, 'It is he! Oh what strange fortune has brought him here!'"
"'Not fortune,' said my father with emotion, as he raised the little book, 'but, as I believe, a gracious Providence, who will surely bring both guilt and innocence to light.'"